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The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has turned the West Bank into an open-air prison for Palestinians, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has said in a new report.
The report states that since 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli forces, and many have faced long detentions and are "often presumed guilty without evidence".
"All the more, as these offences appear to be part of a plan to de-Palestinianise the territory. This threatens the existence of the Palestinian people as a national cohesive group. It is critical that the international community recognises the illegality of the Israeli occupation," Albanese told the Human Rights Council during a session on Monday.
While Gaza has often been referred to as an "open-air prison" because of the blockade it has faced since 2007, Albanese has extended this language to include more Palestinian territories, including the occupied West Bank.
"This wider carcerality, made of an array of laws, procedures and techniques of coercive confinement, transforms the occupied Palestinian territory into a constantly surveilled open-air...
