Many Palestinians living under Israeli occupation suffer from a “coercive environment” where settlement expansion has made people’s lives so unbearable that they feel pressured to move, according to a top UN official there.

James Heenan, head of the UN human rights office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said that permits for building in the West Bank, were “almost non-existent” now for Palestinians.

Speaking to Reem Abaza of UN News in Jerusalem, Mr. Heenan explained the challenges Palestinians routinely face today, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.