Israel is ramping up annexation of West Bank, UN rights chief says

GENEVA (Reuters) -Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the State of Israel, in breach of international law, the U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday.

The report, based on research between November 1, 2023, and October 31, 2024, said there had been a "significant" expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and cited reports by Israeli non-governmental organisations of tens of thousands of planned housing units in new or existing settlements.

The findings will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council this month and come amid growing fears of annexation among Palestinians, as U.S. policy shifts under President Donald Trump and new settler outposts are put down in areas of the West Bank seen as part of a future Palestinian state.

"The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime," U.N. High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement accompanying the report, urging the international community to take meaningful action.

"Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers," he said.

Israel disengaged from the U.N. Human Rights Council earlier this year, alleging a chronic anti-Israeli bias. Its diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel's settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.

Israel's opposition to ceding control of the West Bank has been deepened by its fears of a repeat of the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas-led militants. Its military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and targeting suspected militants.

Plans for the further provision of Israeli government services in these settlements "further institutionalise(s) long-standing patterns of systematic discrimination, segregation, oppression, domination, violence and other inhumane acts against the Palestinian people", the report said.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Kirsti Knolle and Alison Williams)