UN rapporteur urges a protection presence in the West Bank and Gaza

An international protection presence should be deployed in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza without further delay, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, said on Monday.

"An International Protection Presence in West Bank/ East Jerusalem and Gaza is absolutely URGENT," she wrote on the platform X.

Her intervention followed video that circulated from Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. A group of young settlers appear in it to set upon Palestinians working ground that belongs to them, and among the men attacked was Saeed al-Amour, an elderly Palestinian with a disability.

Albanese grounded the demand in the advisory opinion the International Court of Justice issued in July 2024, which found Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful and held that other states must not assist in maintaining it. "Third states have an obligation, per the ICJ, to act to end Israel's unlawful occupation," she said.

The obstacle she named is the Security Council, where United States vetoes have repeatedly kept binding measures on Gaza and the West Bank off the table. She asked instead whether two routes around it could be opened: the good offices of the secretary-general, and the Uniting for Peace mechanism at the General Assembly, which allows the assembly to take up a question of international peace and security when the council cannot act because its permanent members are not unanimous.

What separates the request from the condemnations that usually follow a settler attack is that it asks for people on the ground rather than a statement afterwards. Palestinian communities and human rights organisations say settlers carry out attacks with little expectation of prosecution, and that Israeli forces present in the area have at times not intervened to protect residents.

The farmers most exposed are those whose fields lie beside settlements and outposts, where residents report being assaulted, having property destroyed and being kept off land they own. A protection presence would put outside monitors in exactly those places; nothing in the current arrangement puts anyone there at all.