The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, described the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories as "catastrophic."

In a briefing to the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in the Swiss city of Geneva, Bachelet said that this had devastating effects on the prospects for peace and sustainable development in the region, stressing that only an end to the occupation could bring about peace and create conditions in which human rights for all could be respected.

In his briefing, Bachelet described numerous Israeli violations against the Palestinian people in the Palestinian territories, most notably the recent occupation aggression against the Gaza Strip, which had resulted in the martyrdom of 261 Palestinians, including 67 children, and the suffocating siege of the Strip and its negative effects on all aspects of life.

He pointed out that although reconstruction efforts continued, and goods were gradually allowed into Gaza, the humanitarian situation "remained extremely worrying."