Israeli Settlements in West Bank up 23% since 2014

GENEVA (AA) – The number of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank has increased by 23% since 2014, and there are now close to 480,000 settlers, a UN expert told the UN Human Rights Council on Friday.

Michael Lynk, the special rapporteur on the situation in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, delivered his 12th and final report.

Lynk spoke of “the relentless land confiscation, the ever-expanding Jewish-only settlements, the dual legal system, the vast gap in living conditions between Israeli settlers and the Palestinians living among them.”

“The vast separation in political rights has amounted to, or resembles, apartheid,” he said.

He noted that in 2014 when the last serious peace process efforts – under US Secretary of State John Kerry – collapsed, 370,000 Israeli settlers were living in the West Bank.

“Today, there are close to 480,000 settlers – an increase of 23%,” said Lynk.

“Add to that the 230,000 Jewish Israeli settlers in Jerusalem, and there are now 710,000 Israeli settlers – over 10% of the Israeli Jewish population – living in occupied territory in settlements that the UN Security Council has declared to be a ‘flagrant violation under international law’.”

Settler violence

Lynk said that the instances of settler violence towards Palestinians in 2021 were the highest since statistics were first assembled in 2012.

“And the demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israeli military has also been spiking continuously upwards,” he said.

“We must also recognize and condemn the deaths of innocent Israel civilians during this period – too much bloodshed on all sides of this occupation has been shed,” he said.

Lynk delivered his speech after UN High commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet spoke at the council on the “expansion of settlements.”

“Of particular concern was the continued advancement of settlements in and around East Jerusalem, further consolidating a ring of settlement blocs around the city,” Bachelet said.

“This seriously undermines the viability of a two-state solution and has severe impacts on the human rights of Palestinians,” she added.

Bachelet also said that establishing and expanding settlements is “a flagrant violation of international law.”

She said Israel demolished 967 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the highest number since the UN started recording this data, displacing 1,190 Palestinians, including 656 children.

In the Bedouin community of Humsa al Bqai’a, Israeli authorities demolished 196 structures, displacing 365 Palestinians, including 209 children.

Amnesty International earlier this year accused Israel of having committed crimes of apartheid against Palestinians.