UN rights expert says Israeli settlements a 'war crime'
Israel blasted the report as “the latest one-sided and biased report against Israel."
A top human rights expert for the United Nations called Friday on the international community to designate the establishment of Israeli settlements as a war crime.
On Friday, Michael Lynk, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, called the settlements “the engine of Israel’s 54-year-old occupation, the longest in the modern world.”
“In my report, I conclude that the Israeli settlements do amount to a war crime,” Lynk said, adding that they violate the Rome Statute’s ban on transferring parts of a civilian population into an occupied territory.
In a statement provided to Reuters, Israel’s UN mission in Geneva dismissed the report as “the latest one-sided and biased report against Israel” and accused Lynk of ignoring rights abuses by the Palestinians.
