Israeli oppression of Palestinians may constitute apartheid: Former UN chief

Former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the Israeli regime’s violence and violation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories could amount to apartheid.

Ban said after his three-day visit to the West Asia region on Thursday that he had “seen signs, through expanding West Bank Jewish settlements and tighter restrictions against Palestinians, that an apartheid system was taking root.”

Drawing an analogy between what he encountered during his trip and the one he faced while head of the world body from 2007 to 2016, Ban said, “I think the situation has worsened. I’m just thinking that, as many people are saying, that this may constitute apartheid.”

The former UN chief also expressed concern that a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict was ”fading away” amid a spike in deadly violence in the occupied West Bank.

Ban was in the region on behalf of The Elders, a group of statespeople that engages in peacemaking and human rights initiatives around the world. Along with the group’s chair, former Irish President Mary Robinson, he met with Palestinian leaders and Israeli authorities.

Robinson, for her part, condemned the Israeli violence against Palestinians and said the occupying regime was using disproportionate force in its raids.

Prominent rights groups have already raised the alarm that the occupying regime is morphing into an apartheid system that they say gives Palestinians second-class status and is designed to maintain Zionist hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

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The Israeli oppression of Palestinians has witnessed a sharp rise under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition cabinet, which is composed of far-right Zionist parties that oppose Palestinian statehood and support the expansion of illegal settlements.

Over the past months, the Israeli regime has intensified attacks against Palestinian towns and cities throughout the occupied territories. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Palestinians have lost their lives and many others have been arrested.

Most of the raids have targeted the cities of Nablus and Jenin in the occupied West Bank, where the regime’s forces have been trying to stifle a growing Palestinian resistance against the occupation.

One of the objectives of Israeli raids on various locations across the occupied West Bank has been to raze the structures that belong to the Palestinians, whom the regime accuses of killing Zionist settlers.

As a result of these attacks, over 160 Palestinians, including 28 children, have lost their lives and many others have been arrested in 2023.

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