UN Official Censures Zionist Regime for Illegal Settlements

Construction of illegal settlements by the Israeli regime, and settlers’ attacks against Palestinians are the major source of human rights violations in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem), says a top official from the United Nations.

During the UN’s Human Rights Council in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also voiced concerns over an increase in violence in and around the besieged Gaza Strip by Israeli forces.
"Israeli settlement-related activities and settler violence are at the core of many of the violations of human rights in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem," Pillay said, adding such activities "also violate the entire spectrum of Palestinians' social, cultural, civil, and political rights."
"Despite repeated calls for Israel to cease settlement activity, ongoing settlement construction, and acts of settler violence continue with devastating consequences for Palestinian civilians," said the UN top official.
UN observers in the West Bank documented "a dramatic increase in fatalities and injuries in incidents of use of force by Israeli security forces" in 2013, said Pillay, who is a former judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.
The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.
Source: Press TV