Slippery Slope

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ representative in Israel slammed Israel’s so-called voluntary return of Eritreans to their life-threatening home country under threat of detention, saying there was nothing voluntary about it. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

Israel may expand settlement construction,  as a possible sanction against the Palestinian Authority, should the PA request permanent observer-state status at the United Nations General Assembly at the end of the month. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has found that settlers have completely taken over 30 of the West Bank’s water springs, and turned some of them into tourist attractions, limiting Palestinians’ access to them.  A further 26 springs are at risk of settler takeover. (OCHA PDF)

(Hebrew - Walla)

The United Nations has called on Israel to immediately halt the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, after a dramatic increase in such demolitions was reported in the last year.  In 2011 Israeli security forces demolished 622 homes in the West Bank, housing over 1,100 people, over half of them children.  According to Maxwell Gaylard, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, ”The current policy and practice of demolitions cause extensive human suffering and should end.”

The annual United Nations report on the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories found that the number of civilian casualties in Gaza and the West Bank rose by more than 30% compared to 2010. The report addresses the Gaza blockade, which it views as collective punishment, the situation in East Jerusalem, and Area C – which is under Israeli control – where Palestinian residents are facing increasing pressure from the Israeli authorities and settlers violence.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized the IDF’s conduct in the events commemorating the Nakba Day in the north, on May 15. According to the UN report, IDF soldiers used disproportionate force against Lebanese demonstrators, seven of whom were killed by IDF fire during the events. Foreign Ministry decided to cut contacts with the UN envoy to Lebanon, Michael Williams, who wrote the report.

(Hebrew)

UN special envoy on human rights in the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, presented a report stating that Israel has killed 1,300 Palestinian children since 2000.

A report by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) criticizes Israel for  for not adopting a national children’s rights strategy or program and states that Israel does not enforce child-protection laws. The report also criticizes Israel for maintaining that the UN convention on the Rights of the Child does not apply in the West Bank. (Hebrew, English)