“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” said United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
An independent United Nations expert has warned that “Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole” as Western governments, corporations, and other institutions keep up their support for the Israeli military, which stands accused of grave war crimes in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement that “there is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control”.
“The writing is on the wall, and we cannot continue to ignore it,” said Albanese, who released a detailed report in May concluding that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza.
Albanese’s new statement came as the Israeli military’s largest assault on the West Bank in decades continued into its second week. At least 29 Palestinians have been killed during the series of military raids, according to Al Jazeera, including at least five children.
“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” Albanese said on Tuesday. “The longstanding impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinisation of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.
“The international community, made of both states and non-state actors, including companies and financial institutions, must do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability, and ultimately end Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian territory,” she added.
Defence for Children International–Palestine noted on Monday that “dozens of Israeli military vehicles” have “stormed” the West Bank city of Jenin over the past week as “Israeli forces deployed across the targeted refugee camps, seizing Palestinian homes to use as military bases and stationing snipers on the roofs of buildings, subjecting their residents to field investigations”.
“The military bulldozers began destroying the civil infrastructure in Jenin city and camp, which led to the destruction of the main water networks and power outage in several neighborhoods in Jenin and surrounding villages,” the group said.
Israeli forces besieged several hospitals in Jenin and impeded the movement of ambulances and paramedics.
Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 620 people in the occupied West Bank since 7 October 2023, on top of the roughly 40,800 killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
Unlawful Israeli land seizures have also surged in the West Bank as settlers and soldiers wipe out entire Palestinian communities. The BBCreported on Monday that, according to its own analysis, there are “currently at least 196 across the West Bank, and 29 were set up last year—more than in any previous year”.
Israel’s multi-day attack on the West Bank that began last week has intensified fears that unless there is a permanent cease-fire, the assault on Gaza could expand to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and throughout the Middle East.
David Hearst, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, wrote on Monday that “even with the obvious reluctance of Hezbollah and Iran to get involved, all the ingredients are there for a much larger conflagration”.