UN rights office says Israeli settlement plan breaks international law

The UN human rights office on Friday said an Israeli plan to build thousands of homes between an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank and near occupied East Jerusalem was illegal under international law, and would put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction, which it described as a war crime. Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday vowed to press on with a long-delayed settlement project, saying the move would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state. The UN rights office representative said the plan would break the West Bank into isolated enclaves and that it was “a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.