NEW YORK (Dispatches) – The United Nations Commission of Inquiry has announced that the ongoing investigation against the Zionist regime will start probing apartheid charges, reported the Times of Israel.
During a briefing at the United Nations in New York on Thursday, the three members of the commission said future reports will investigate apartheid by the occupying regime.
The commission said the investigation had so far focused on the “root causes” of the conflict, which they confirmed arise from the regime’s illegal presence in the occupied West Bank.
Navi Pillay, a former UN human rights chief who chairs the commission, called apartheid “a manifestation of the occupation.”
She said, “We’re focusing on the root cause which is the occupation and part of it lies in apartheid. We will be coming to that. That’s the beauty of this open-ended mandate, it gives us the scope.”
The commission was set up after the 11-day Zionist attack in May 2021, during which civilians were killed and injured, tens of thousands displaced, homes and vital infrastructure destroyed and the supply of basic services severely disrupted.
Commission member Miloon Kothari also said the open-ended nature of the probe allowed it to examine the apartheid charge. “We will get to it because we have many years and issues to look at,” he said.
“We think a comprehensive approach is necessary so we have to look at issues of settler colonialism,” Kothari added. “Apartheid itself is a very useful paradigm, so we have a slightly different approach but we will definitely get to it.”
Earlier this month, 143 UN member states voted in favor of a General Assembly resolution reaffirming that any attempt at unilateral annexation of a state’s territory by another state is a violation of international law.
The Commission of Inquiry dedicated a significant part of its report to reviewing the impact of the regime’s occupation and de facto annexation policies on Palestinian human rights, noting the coercive environment intended to force Palestinians to leave their homes and alter the demographic composition of certain areas.