Bar Association: The absence of international accountability and a policy of impunity are the main reasons for the criminal actions of settlers in the West Bank.

SadaNews - The Palestinian Bar Association stated in a press release that the absence of international accountability and the ongoing impunity despite the magnitude of the crimes committed in the occupied territory by settler gangs, with governmental cover, is evident today in the West Bank where acts of violence, killing, looting, and burning of public and private property by settlers occur, representing war crimes. This is happening repeatedly in villages such as Tal, Deir Jarir, al-Mughayer, Sinjel, Beit Furik, Beit Dajan, Turmus Ayya, Masafer Yatta, and other Palestinian villages and regions.

The Bar Association indicated that these organized criminal acts committed by extremist settlers, supported by military forces of the occupation authorities, parallel what the Palestinian people are experiencing in the Gaza Strip. This represents the implementation of a colonial strategy aimed at uprooting the Palestinian people from their land, stealing this land, and entrenching annexation and displacement. It signifies a renewed humiliation of international law and solidifies a trend that has extended for decades in granting the occupying power a status above international law.

The Association emphasized that the weakness of the international accountability system is a major reason for encouraging the aggressor to continue its aggression against an unarmed people. It affirmed that the responsibilities borne by the international community and its institutions in confronting this colonial onslaught, which constitutes organized crimes as defined by the Rome Statute, are obligations that must be applied and activated; they are not optional or selective matters. Thus, it places the international system before new legal and ethical tests regarding its alignment with and silence over these crimes, and its ability to protect the goals and objectives adopted by the United Nations in the context of safeguarding human rights and adopting principles of justice and fairness, and entrenching the rule of law in the world.