Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres said on Saturday, 4 March 2023 that Palestinians are suffering and “living in hell” under the prolonged Israeli occupation.

Guterres added that tensions are high in the occupied West Bank after Israeli settlers set dozens of Palestinian homes and cars on fire in what appeared to be the worst outburst of settler violence in decades.

He noted that he was following with great concern the situation in the town of Huwwara, where Palestinian aid workers were killed, hundreds of others wounded and dozens of homes and cars were torched during the last week’s rampage by Israeli settlers.

Guterres stressed that the Palestinian people are suffering a lot at present and that life in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip in many aspects is “a life of hell.”

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The international community views the settlements – hundreds of which have been built across the West Bank since the Israeli occupation of the land in 1967 – as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on the occupied lands.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.