A confidential document of the International Committee of the Red Cross accuses Israel of violating international humanitarian laws in East Jerusalem, isolating Palestinians there from the West Bank and preventing them from getting permanent residency, according to a report published Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Red Cross in Jerusalem, Bernard Barrett, confirmed the accuracy of the New York Times report. But he said he could not release the document since it was confidential.

The document was released in February to the parties involved, Barrett said.

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An Israeli spokesman said the document it did not take into consideration that Israel had offered citizenship to Palestinian residents in east Jerusalem when it annexed the sector of the city after capturing it in the 1967 Mideast war. Most of those Palestinians refused to take Israeli citizenship.

Palestinian officials did not immediately return calls requesting comment.

The Red Cross found that Israel's separation barrier with the West Bank,
settlements outside Jerusalem, and a thick network of Israeli roads
prevent the free movement of Palestinians living in the city and nearby West Bank communities, according to the Times.

The document found that Israel is showing a general disregard for its
obligations under international humanitarian law in its practices in East
Jerusalem, the daily reported.

Israel views both the largely Arab eastern half of the city, as wel, as the mostly Jewish western half, as its capital. Palestinians hope to make Jerusalem the capital of a future state.

"Israel is using its role as an occupier to further its own interests or those of its own population to the detriment of the population of the occupied territory, which it says is foreign to the letter and spirit of occupation law," according to the report, The New York Times said.

The committee found that the separation barrier, while built to keep out
suicide bombers, is also following a demographic logic, enclosing the
settlement blocs around the city while excluding built-up Palestinian areas (thus creating isolated Palestinian enclaves), the newspaper said.

Israel has received the report but did not accept its conclusions, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "We reject the premise of the report," Regev said.

"East Jerusalem is not occupied land, it is part of Israel. All people there were offered full Israeli citizenship."

Regev said that there have been historic differences between Israel and the International Committee of the Red Cross, but that now Israel has a good relationship with the body.