UN committee warns Israel pushing Palestinian territory toward 'fragmentation and despair'

The vice chair of the UN committee on Palestinian rights warned Tuesday that the situation across the occupied Palestinian territory is deteriorating rapidly, urging the Security Council to act with urgency against Israeli policies.

"The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is not progressing towards peace. It is moving toward deeper fragmentation, dispossession, and despair as Israel entrenches its illegal occupation by the day, escalating its unlawful policies and violent practices against the Palestinian people," said Umar Hadi, vice chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, at the Council's open debate on the Middle East.

Saying that "Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are not separate files," he said: "They are one political, legal, and territorial unit under brutal and unlawful Israeli occupation, and they must be addressed as such."

He also warned that "Gaza must not be treated as an isolated humanitarian exception; while annexation, settlement expansion, and violence continue elsewhere, peace will not come through fragmentation."

On Jerusalem, Hadi said Israel "must be demanded to halt its unilateral and unlawful transformation of the city, depriving Palestinians of their historical, cultural, and religious heritage."

He called on the Council to "protect civilians, reject annexation, demographic engineering, and collective punishment" and move toward "full implementation of the New York Declaration."

The New York Declaration, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2024, outlined a global framework for achieving a two-state solution and ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.