The United Nations on Wednesday urged Israel to end its decades-long "apartheid system" against Palestinians amid intensifying discrimination and segregation in the occupied West Bank.
In a new report, slammed by Israel, the U.N. rights office said "systematic discrimination" against Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territories had "drastically deteriorated" in recent years.
"There is a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank," U.N. rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement.
"Whether accessing water, school, rushing to hospital, visiting family or friends, or harvesting olives – every aspect of life for Palestinians in the West Bank is controlled and curtailed by Israel's discriminatory laws, policies and practices," he added.
"This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before."
