UN Report Calls Israeli West Bank Policies Apartheid-Like

The United Nations human rights office issued a report on Wednesday describing Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank as a system of oppression and domination resembling apartheid, marking the first time a UN high commissioner for human rights has used the term. The document, released by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, calls on Israel to dismantle all settlements and end its unlawful presence in the territory to address what it labels systemic racial discrimination against Palestinians.

UN High Commissioner Volker Turk stated that "there is a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank." He highlighted how Israeli laws, policies and practices control every aspect of Palestinian life, from accessing water and schools to rushing to hospitals, visiting family or harvesting olives. The report details restrictions on movement through checkpoints, limited access to roads, natural resources, land and basic social facilities, leading to widespread dispossession of Palestinian homes and lands.

A core element of the discrimination involves two parallel legal systems, the report says. Israeli settlers, numbering more than 500,000 in the...