NEW YORK - The human rights situation for Palestinians has deteriorated to a new low, a United Nations rights expert said yesterday, blaming the West for contributing to the "tragic" situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

John Dugard, a South African civil rights lawyer, said Israel is largely responsible for the "intolerable" situation of the Palestinians.

"I hope that my portrayal of hardships experienced by such people will trouble the consciences of those accustomed to turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the suffering of the Palestinian people," Dugard told the UN Human Rights Council.

	Advertisement

"Gaza is a prison and Israel seems to have thrown away the key," Dugard said. Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, rejected Dugard's allegations as "one-sided" and not reflecting reality.

"What Israel chooses to describe as collateral damage to the civilian population is in fact indiscriminate killing prohibited by international law," Dugard said."

"This report is characterized by errors of omission as well as distortions of both fact and law," he said, adding that Dugard described the situation in the territory of the Palestinian Authority in an "oversimplified manner."

Dugard, an anti-apartheid civil rights lawyer in the 1980s, was appointed by the now defunct UN Human Rights Commission in 2001 to investigate only rights violations by the Israeli side.

Dugard also criticized Western nations for cutting off funding to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas' victory in legislative elections in January.

"In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions - the first time an occupied people has been so treated," Dugard said. "Palestinian people are punished for having democratically elected a regime unacceptable to Israel, the U.S. and the EU."