Volker Turk’s description of the occupied West Bank’s situation as ‘apartheid’ marks first time a United Nations human rights chief has used term.
Published On 7 Jan 2026
The United Nations human rights office has called on Israel to “dismantle all settlements” in the occupied West Bank, saying its “oppression and domination” of Palestinians resembles “apartheid”.
In a new report on Wednesday, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights slammed Israel’s “systemic discrimination” against Palestinians, citing restrictions on movement through checkpoints, and “limited access to roads, natural resources, land and basic social facilities”.
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“There is a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank,” said UN rights chief Volker Turk in a statement. “This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before.”
While UN-affiliated independent experts have described the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories as “apartheid”, Turk’s comments marked the first time a UN rights chief used the term, which was coined during South Africa’s system of racial segregation that lasted from 1948 to 1994.
Turk said every aspect of life in the occupied West Bank is “controlled and curtailed by Israel’s discriminatory laws, policies and practices”, from accessing water to harvesting olives.
Wednesday’s report called out the Israeli authorities for treating Israeli settlers and Palestinians “under two distinct bodies of law and policies, resulting in unequal treatment on a range of critical issues”, with “large-scale confiscation of land and deprivation of access to resources”.
The laws had led to Palestinians being dispossessed of their lands and homes “alongside other forms of systemic discrimination including criminal prosecution in military courts during which their due process and fair trial rights are systematically violated”.
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Israel has previously rejected the apartheid accusations, saying its policies are driven by “security concerns” rather than racial or ethnic discrimination.
The UN rights office said the discrimination in the Palestinian territories is compounded by continuing and escalating settler violence in many cases “with the acquiescence, support and participation of Israel’s security forces”.
More than 500,000 Israelis currently live in settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967 and home to about three million Palestinians.
Violence has surged in the shadow of the genocidal war on Gaza, with Israeli attacks killing more than 1,100 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. Israeli authorities have arrested nearly 21,000 Palestinians during that period.
Meanwhile, Israel’s settlement expansion continues, with Israel recently approving 19 new settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, as the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves to prevent the formation of a contiguous Palestinian state.