A UN official has accused the Israeli regime of “ethnic cleansing” by forcing Palestinian citizens of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) out of their city.
Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, made the remarks at a news conference in the Swiss city of Geneva on Friday.
Falk said Tel Aviv’s policies bore “unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”
More than 11,000 Palestinians have lost their right to live in East al-Quds since 1996 due to laws favoring Jews and revoking Palestinian residence permits, Falk noted.
“The 11,000 is just the tip of the iceberg because many more are faced with possible challenges to their residency rights,” Falk added.
The UN official slammed Israel’s construction of illegal settlements, saying, “Every increment of enlarging the settlements or every incident of house demolition is a way of worsening the situation confronting the Palestinian people and reducing what prospects they might have as the outcome of supposed peace negotiations.”
Palestinians seek to create an independent state on the territories of the occupied West Bank, East al-Quds, and the besieged Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.
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.
NT/MHB/MAM
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