An investigation by the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry (COI) released its second report on Thursday over rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, calling on the UN Security Council to end Israel’s “permanent occupation”.
The report accuses Israel of violating international law by annexing land claimed by Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Syrian land in the Golan Heights, and by making its control over the West Bank permanent through “de-facto annexation policies”.
The report, which will be presented to the UN General Assembly on October 27, also accuses Israel of discriminatory policies against its Arab citizens, of stealing natural resources, and of gender-based violence against Palestinian women.
The COI is a three-member body, created in May of last year following clashes between Israel and Hamas over a property dispute in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. It is tasked by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate “all alleged violations of international humanitarian law” in Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said: “By ignoring international law in establishing or facilitating the establishment of settlements, and directly or indirectly transferring Israeli civilians into these settlements, successive Israeli governments have set facts on the ground to ensure permanent Israeli control in the West Bank.”
The COI’s report also requested their findings be referred to the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court, and called for the International Criminal Court to prioritise its investigation over whether Israeli treatment of Palestinians constitute war crimes.
Nowhere in the 28-page report are the words “Hamas”, “terrorism”, or “rockets”.
The body's first report, an 18-page document released in June, blamed Israel’s “persistent discrimination against Palestinians” for violence between the two sides.
Israel has refused to cooperate with the commission’s inquiry and rejected the report’s outcome, saying: “Commissioners who made antisemitic comments and who proactively engaged in anti-Israel activism, both before and after their appointment, have no legitimacy nor credibility in addressing the issue at hand.”
Earlier this year, one of the commission’s investigators, Miloon Kothari, made headlines for saying that social media was largely controlled by the “Jewish lobby” and questioned whether Israel should be a member state of the UN at all.
The statement caused outcry in Israel, with Prime Minister Yair Lapid calling for the commission to be disbanded immediately.
Lapid said at the time: "The Commission of Inquiry has been fundamentally tainted by the publicly expressed prejudices of its leadership, who do not meet the basic standards of neutrality, independence, and impartiality required by the United Nations,”
Ms Pillay, who herself has repeatedly been accused of anti-Israel bias, defended Mr Kothari and said his comments had been deliberately taken out of context.
Chris Sidoti, the commission’s third member, had previously dismissed accusations of antisemitism against the commission, saying the charge was being “thrown around like rice at a wedding.”
On Thursday, a State Department spokesperson reiterated US concerns about the commission, saying, “Israel is consistently unfairly targeted in the UN system, including in the course of this commission of inquiry.
“No country, the record of no country, should be immune from scrutiny, but no country should also be targeted unfairly. And that’s the principle that we seek to uphold.”
Ms Pillay had on Thursday also sought to link Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian territories to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, to which Mr Price said there was no comparison.
He said, “I think it is important to take a step back and to recognise the profound differences between those two situations.”
COI members had previously acknowledged that they may open an investigation about whether Israel is guilty of apartheid, however no date or action has so far been taken.
