Volker Turk’s description of the occupied West Financial institution’s scenario as ‘apartheid’ marks first time a United Nations human rights chief has used time period.
Printed On 7 Jan 2026
The United Nations human rights workplace has known as on Israel to “dismantle all settlements” within the occupied West Financial institution, saying its “oppression and domination” of Palestinians resembles “apartheid”.
In a brand new report on Wednesday, the Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights slammed Israel’s “systemic discrimination” in opposition to Palestinians, citing restrictions on motion by means of checkpoints, and “restricted entry to roads, pure sources, land and fundamental social services”.
Advisable Tales
record of 4 objectsfinish of record
“There’s a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians within the West Financial institution,” stated UN rights chief Volker Turk in a press release. “This can be a notably extreme type of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the form of apartheid system we’ve seen earlier than.”
Whereas UN-affiliated unbiased specialists have described the scenario within the occupied Palestinian territories as “apartheid”, Turk’s feedback marked the primary time a UN rights chief used the time period, which was coined throughout South Africa’s system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994.
Turk stated each side of life within the occupied West Financial institution is “managed and curtailed by Israel’s discriminatory legal guidelines, insurance policies and practices”, from accessing water to harvesting olives.
Wednesday’s report known as out the Israeli authorities for treating Israeli settlers and Palestinians “beneath two distinct our bodies of regulation and insurance policies, leading to unequal remedy on a variety of essential points”, with “large-scale confiscation of land and deprivation of entry to sources”.
The legal guidelines had led to Palestinians being dispossessed of their lands and houses “alongside different types of systemic discrimination together with prison prosecution in navy courts throughout which their due course of and honest trial rights are systematically violated”.
Two our bodies of regulation
Israel has beforehand rejected the apartheid accusations, saying its insurance policies are pushed by “safety considerations” reasonably than racial or ethnic discrimination.
The UN rights workplace stated the discrimination within the Palestinian territories is compounded by persevering with and escalating settler violence in lots of circumstances “with the acquiescence, assist and participation of Israel’s safety forces”.
Greater than 500,000 Israelis at present stay in settlements within the West Financial institution, occupied since 1967 and residential to about three million Palestinians.
Violence has surged within the shadow of the genocidal warfare on Gaza, with Israeli attacks killing greater than 1,100 Palestinians within the West Financial institution since October 7, 2023. Israeli authorities have arrested almost 21,000 Palestinians throughout that interval.
In the meantime, Israel’s settlement growth continues, with Israel not too long ago approving 19 new settlement outposts within the occupied West Financial institution, because the right-wing authorities of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strikes to stop the formation of a contiguous Palestinian state.
