A NEW report by the UN strips away whatever little ambiguity remained around Israel’s conduct in occupied West Bank. For the first time, a UN rights chief has explicitly described Israel’s system of rule as resembling apartheid — a serious designation, but one that Palestinians have endured for decades. The report speaks of a “systematic asphyxiation” of Palestinian rights, an apt phrase for a reality in which daily life is suffocated by discriminatory laws and practices. From access to water and education to healthcare and livelihoods, Palestinians in the West Bank exist under a system designed to privilege Israeli settlers while dehumanising the indigenous community. Two people living on the same land are governed by two entirely different legal systems: civil law for settlers, military law for Palestinians. The result is predictable. Land confiscation, home demolitions, detention, trials in military courts, and escalating settler violence often carried out with the support of Israeli security forces. That this situation has now been labelled ‘apartheid’ by the UN is significant, but hardly revelatory. Independent experts, human rights groups and Palestinians themselves have long warned that segregation and domination are not accidental byproducts of occupation but its very purpose. The West Bank has become an experiment of repression where Palestinian existence is tolerated only as long as it remains compliant and invisible. Equally damning is the context in which this report arrives. Just months ago, a separate UN inquiry described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocidal. Yet, as with countless resolutions and condemnations before, little has changed on the ground. Babies in Gaza continue to die from cold and malnutrition. Cancer patients perish for lack of treatment. Civilians are killed with impunity, shot in the head, bombed in their homes, starved behind blockades, while the world debates semantics.

Israel dismissed the report as “absurd and distorted”. But denial has long been its first line of defence, enabled by powerful allies. The real absurdity lies in the international community’s response: outrage followed by inaction. The suffering of Palestinians continues as though they are, indeed, children of a lesser god undeserving of the rights, dignity and protection afforded to others. The UN’s words must be followed by consequences.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2026