NEW YORK, 04 November 2021, (TON): UN human rights experts condemned the recent approval by the Israeli government of plans to build several thousand new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, reiterating that settlements are a presumptive war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and should be treated as such by the international community.

The experts said “Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are a “flagrant violation under international law (and the) illegality (is) one of the most widely-accepted issues in modern international law.”

In the first move of its kind since Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett came to power in June, the Israeli government advanced plans last week to build more than 3,000 new settlement units, most of them deep inside the occupied West Bank.

The experts said “the very raison d’être of the Israeli settlements in occupied territory, the creation of demographic facts on the ground to solidify a permanent presence, a consolidation of alien political control and an unlawful claim of sovereignty, tramples upon the fundamental precepts of humanitarian and human rights law.”

Michael Lynk, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory since 1967, and Balakrishnan Rajagopal, of the US and special rapporteur on adequate housing, were among the experts.