Former Irish president and UN human rights chief Mary Robinson says Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land is unfolding in plain sight, enabled by impunity and a lack of international political will.

I have just returned from my first visit to the West Bank since 2023. What I saw then was deeply disturbing, but today the situation is far worse.  It is now an emboldened and aggressive process of Israeli annexation of Palestinian land unfolding in plain sight.

Together with my fellow Elders on this visit that also took us to Lebanon and Jordan – Helen Clark, Graça Machel and Hina Jilani – I arrived at a clear conclusion: the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aims to make Palestine disappear physically, economically, culturally and politically.

This is happening on our watch. The lack of accountability that has allowed Israel to act in this way is unconscionable. The impunity must be stopped.

Travelling in the West Bank, I got a visceral sense of a land and people under ever-more repressive occupation. We visited the Palestinian village of Deir Nidham, whose inhabitants are subject to continuous harassment by violent settlers, with the support of the Israeli army.........

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