UN investigators blame Israel over continuing conflict with Palestinians

UN investigators blame Israel over continuing conflict with Palestinians



June 8, 2022

A high-level team of United Nations investigators has found that Israel’s ill treatment of Palestinians is the main cause of the cycles of violence between the Jewish state and those whose land it occupies.

The team, appointed last year by the United Nations Human Rights Council to probe the root causes of the conflict stated in its report that there were ample evidence that Israel has no intention of ending its occupation of Palestinian land.

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

Lead investigator Navi Pillay, who is from South Africa said in a statement that past recommendations to ease the conflict have overwhelmingly not been implemented, leading to the failure of ensuring Israel’s accountability in abiding to international laws.

“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,” Pillay’s statement reads.

Israel has described the investigation as “a witch hunt”, “one-sided” and “tainted with hatred for the state of Israel and based on a long series of previous one-sided and biased reports.”

Its foreign ministry stated that the investigating team, set up following the 11-day Hamas-Israel war in May last year, which killed 260 Palestinians and 13 Israelis was “the result of the Human Rights Council’s extreme anti-Israel bias.”

Israel’s strongest ally the United States stated that it also opposes the findings of the UN investigators.