UN inquiry says Israel must end settlements
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/2013131101929493601.html
Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank violate international law, and the country must “immediately” withdraw all settlers from such areas, UN human rights investigators have said.
Israel has not co-operated with the inquiry, set up by the Human Rights Council (HRC) last March to examine the impact of settlements in the territory, including East Jerusalem.
“Israel must ... cease all settlement activities without preconditions [and] must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers” from the occupied territories, the fact-finding mission concluded in a report released on Thursday.
The inquiry was led by French Judge Christine Chanet, and included Asma Jehangir of Pakistan and Unity Dow of Botswana as panel members.
The settlements contravene the 1949 Geneva Conventions forbidding the transfer of civilian populations into the occupied territory, which could amount to war crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), it said.
In December, the Palestinians accused Israel in a letter to the UN of planning to commit further “war crimes” by expanding Jewish settlements after the Palestinians won de facto UN recognition of statehood and warned that Jerusalem must be held accountable.
Israel says the forum has an inherent bias against it and defends its settlement policy by citing historical and Biblical links to the West Bank.
On Thursday, the Israeli foreign ministry again said that the council was “systematically one-sided and biased”.
“Counterproductive measures, such as the report before us, will only hamper efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” Yigal Palmor, a ministry spokesperson, said.