GENEVA (9 JULY 2021) Read the full press release Occupied Palestinian Territory: Israeli settlements should be classified as war crimes, says UN expert
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, Michael Lynk, today called on the international community to designate the creation of Israeli settlements as a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Lynk said the Israeli settlements violate the absolute prohibition against the transfer by an occupying power of parts of its civilian population into an occupied territory. The international community designated this practice as a war crime when it adopted the Rome Statute in 1998.
Israeli settlements violate the absolute prohibition against the transfer by an occupying power of parts of its civilian population into an occupied territory
“For Israel, the settlements serve two related purposes. One is to guarantee that the occupied territory will remain under Israeli control in perpetuity. The second purpose is to ensure that there will never be a genuine Palestinian state,” Lynk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“These are exactly the reasons why the international community agreed to prohibit the practice of settler implantation when it created the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949 and the Rome Statute in 1998.”
He said the Israeli settlements were “the engine of Israel’s 54-year-old occupation, the longest in the modern world”. There are now close to 300 settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, with more than 680,000 Israeli settlers.
In his report, the Special Rapporteur called on the international community to adopt a plan of action:
- Fully support the work of the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC as it investigates whether the Israeli settlements violate the Rome Statute;
- Call upon Israel to fully dismantle its settlements;
- Develop a comprehensive menu of accountability measures to bring Israel in compliance with international law should it continue to defy the international community;
- Ensure full accountability of Israeli political, military and administrative leaders who are responsible for grave breaches of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and
- Call upon all UN member states to implement the injunction of the Security Council in 1980, in Resolution 465, not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used in connection with the settlements.
