UN report: Ending Israeli occupation remains essential to halt violence

Geneva (QNN) – The continued occupation by “Israel” of Palestinian territory and discrimination against Palestinians are the key root causes of the recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in the region, according to a UN report.

The findings came Tuesday in the first report by a Commission of Inquiry, headed by a three-person team of human rights experts. It was set up last year by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council following an 11-day war between “Israel” and Hamas in Gaza. The U.N. human rights office says the war killed at least 261 people – including 67 children – in Gaza, and 14 people, including two children, in “Israel”.

“Ending the occupation of lands by “Israel” remains essential in ending the persistent cycles of violence,” the report said.

The 18-page report mainly focuses on evaluating a long line of past UN investigations, reports and rulings on the situation and how and if those findings were implemented.

“The findings and recommendations relevant to the underlying root causes were overwhelmingly directed towards “Israel”, which we have taken as an indicator of the asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one state occupying the other,” lead investigator Navi Pillay, a former UN rights chief from South Africa, said in a statement.

“We also found that these recommendations have overwhelmingly not been implemented, including calls to ensure accountability for “Israel’s” violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and the indiscriminate firing of rockets … by Palestinian armed groups into “Israel”,” she said.

“It is this lack of implementation coupled with a sense of impunity, clear evidence that “Israel” has no intention of ending the occupation, and the persistent discrimination against Palestinians that lies at the heart of the systematic recurrence of violations in both the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and “Israel”.”

“Israel” has refused to cooperate with the Commission of Inquiry (COI) created last year following the 11-day Hamas-Israel war in May 2021, which killed 260 Palestinians and 13 people on the Israeli side.

The COI, which is the highest-level investigation that can be ordered by the UN Human Rights Council, was tasked with looking beyond that surge in violence and to investigate all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in “Israel” and the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.

While the council had previously ordered eight investigations into rights violations in the Palestinian territories, this was the first open-ended probe, and the first to examine “root causes” in the drawn-out conflict.