UN OFFICIAL WARNS OF ‘DETERIORATING’ SITUATION IN PALESTINE

West Bank, 20 Jumadil Awwal/21 March 2014 (MINA) – A United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk has warned of the deteriorating situation for Palestinians under Israel’s apartheid occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Richard Falk said that the situation “on the ground as far as the Palestinians are concerned has actually gotten worse.” Falk also stated that al-Quds (Jerusalem) has turned into “more of a Jewish city.”

There are more Israeli settlers and there is more settlement, he said, Press TV reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

The UN official added that the besieged Gaza Strip is also in “bad shape.” The situation has actually deteriorated, Falk stated.

The UN official stressed that the Palestinians are facing discrimination in the occupied territories, saying they are subject to military suppression with no rights of their own while extremist Israeli settlers have been given rights. Falk made the comments in his final report that will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council soon.

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Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority said on Thursday that talks between Palestinians and Israelis had reached an “impasse” because of Tel Aviv’s “settlement activity.”

The Israeli regime is reportedly pushing ahead with plans for more than 2,000 new illegal settler units in six settlements in the occupied West Bank.

An international lawyer says Israel’s blocking of aid supplies to the Gaza Strip is in violation of international humanitarian law, urging the UN and the global community to take action against Tel Aviv.

“This process of squeezing and putting the people of Gaza on a diet, this is violation of international humanitarian law clearly,” Franklin Lamb said.

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“You cannot starve the people, you cannot prevent their development … This is an assault in a sense on the people of Gaza and there is international responsibility for this,” he added.

The analyst said the UN and the global community need to act and put pressure on Israel to loosen the noose around the Gaza Strip, which is in dire straits.

The UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said on Tuesday that Israel has blocked humanitarian aid worth USD 110 million from reaching Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.

Feltman said that Palestinians in the besieged strip are living in harsh conditions and warned that the humanitarian situation for Palestinians is deteriorating as it is becoming “harder and harder for the UN to help the population of Gaza because of limited access.”

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Meanwhile, Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said on Thursday that the besieged Gaza Strip is in “bad shape,” adding that the situation has actually deteriorated in the coastal sliver.

Israel imposed an all-out land, aerial, and naval blockade on Gaza in June 2007. The siege has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the impoverished enclave, turning the territory into the world’s largest open-air prison.(T/P04/P03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)