Special report: Palestine-Israel Relations

    AMMAN, July 2 (Xinhua) -- A UN fact finding committee criticized Israeli practices in the Palestinian territories, saying that Palestinian human rights conditions have deteriorated due to the siege imposed on Gaza and the separation wall in the West Bank, local daily Jordan Times reported on Wednesday.

    "The industrial or production capacity in both regions is becoming almost minimal," Prasad Kariyawasam, who heads the UN committee told a press conference here on Tuesday.

    Kariyawasam said there are at least 20,000 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, including women and children. "We are concerned that children are not held in proper conditions in Israeli prisons," he said.

    The group also expressed concern that Israel is trying to change the face of Arab East Jerusalem by building more settlements, and said the environment was being destroyed under a systematic approach by Israel.

    "We were told that during the period between August 2007 and June 2008, almost 20,000 trees were uprooted and replanted in settlements in Israel, this is an attempt to destroy the Palestinian people's link with the land," Kariyawasam said.

    The Committee, named UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, was established by the General Assembly last year to probe human rights conditions in the Palestinian areas following complaints of systematic abuse of citizens by Israel.

    They had earlier been denied access to the occupied territories by Israeli authorities and forced to conduct their investigation from Jordan and Egypt by interviewing witnesses from the Palestinian areas, as well as UN activists and Israeli citizens.

    The committee is expected to submit its report to the General Assembly by November this year, but members were concerned that any decision would meet a U.S. veto.