GENEVA (Reuters) - Israel has significantly 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 to be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council later this month comes amid growing fears of annexation amid U.S. policy shifts under President Donald Trump and new settler outposts 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 on Israel’s advancing settlement.
"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 military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and targeting suspected militants.