The US State Department has condemned a new UN report that decries Israel’s continuing presence in the West Bank as “unlawful under international law” and accuses Jerusalem of “maintaining a restrictive and discriminatory planning and building regime for Palestinians.”
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the 28-page report from the ongoing “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel” reflected the institutional bias faced by Israel at the UN.
“Israel is consistently unfairly targeted in the U.N. system, including in the course of this commission of inquiry,” Price said. “No country, the record of no country, should be immune from scrutiny, but no country should also be targeted unfairly. And that’s the principle that we seek to uphold.”
The commission — created in the wake of the May 2021 war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza — will present its report to the UN General Assembly on Oct. 27.
