GENEVA (WAFA) – Israel and its proxies distort facts on the ground in order to allow human rights violations to continue, said Richard Folk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory, according to a news report by the UN Human Rights Council published Thursday.
“Neither Israel nor its proxies can justify the facts on the ground in occupied Palestine,” he said. “So they distract, distort and defame to allow the violations to go on.”
Folk accused lobbying organizations of distracting the world’s attention from Israel’s “unacceptable human rights record” through “irresponsible and dishonest smear campaigns to discredit those who document these realities.”
He said these campaigns “do not change the facts on the ground 46 years after Israel launched the war that began its occupation of Palestine.”
For the Special Rapporteur, the facts on the ground today are plain to see: “Israel continues to annex Palestinian territory; Israel persists in demolishing Palestinians’ homes and populating Palestine with Israeli citizens; Israel routinely detains Palestinians without charges; Israel maintains a policy of collectively punishing 1.75 million Palestinians through its imposition of a blockade on the Gaza Strip; and Israel prosecutes its occupation with impunity, refusing to accept the world’s calls to respect international law.”
Folk said that a Security Council report raised these same concerns in 1979, “but 34 years later Israel remains committed to ignoring international law and pursuing its own set of facts on the ground.”
The Special Rapporteur is scheduled to present his report to the 23rd session of the Human Rights Council on Monday.