THE expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestine is likely to amount to a war crime, the United Nations human rights chief said today.

High commissioner for human rights Volker Turk said the record growth of Israeli settlements risks eliminating any prospect of a Palestinian state.

Most countries view the Israeli settlements as illegal under international law and even Israel’s biggest backer, the United States, admitted last month that the settlements are “inconsistent” with it after the Israelis announced plans for another spurt of settler house construction in the occupied West Bank.

In a report to the UN Human Rights Council, Mr Turk said the Israeli government’s policies “appear aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long-term control over the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and to steadily integrate this occupied territory into the state of Israel.

“Settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state.”

The report said that 24,300 new settler housing units had been built in the occupied West Bank during a one-year period up to the end of last October, the highest number since monitoring began in 2017.

The UN also said that there had been a huge increase in the intensity, severity and regularity of both state and settler violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank since the October 7 attack by Hamas, in which some 1,200 people were killed and nearly 250 taken hostage. 

More than 30,717 Palestinians have been lost their lives in the massive military assault on Gaza that followed the Hamas attack, while in the West Bank, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces or by settlers, according to the report.

It adds that Palestinians now face more forced evictions, home demolitions and restrictions on movement.

Mr Turk said that Israeli plans  to build more settler homes in the settlements of Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar fly “in the face of international law.”

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed that the settlements were unilateral measures that violate international law.

Germany asked the Israeli government to withdraw the settlement plans, branding them “a serious violation of international law.”

But far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has already hit back, proclaiming on social media platform X earlier this week that “the enemies try to harm and weaken us, but we will continue to build and be built up in this land.”