virtually every town and village in the West Bank;57 the rings of colonies placed around and between Palestinian cities in the West Bank severing villages from their cities and from each other; the absence of transport links between Palestinian communities in 1948 Palestine; and the total denial of infrastructure permissions to villages in Area C and Bedouin communities in the Naqab in order to de-develop and de-populate these areas.58 Isolation practices necessarily constitute a violation of the right to selfdetermination because they hinder and undermine the economic, social and cultural interconnection of a people and erode its collective identity. 1.3. Policies of Segregation, Fragmentation and Isolation Undermine the Right to SelfDetermination Segregation, fragmentation and isolation are prohibited mechanisms under the international legal framework on apartheid. Irrespective of these mechanisms’ evident unlawfulness, the Israeli-Zionist regime continues to deploy them in a way that is designed to control, dominate and eliminate the Palestinian people. Self-determination is a process achieved through the realization of political rights, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. In this regard, policies and practices of segregation, fragmentation and isolation operate, separately and jointly, to directly or indirectly inhibit the performance of those substantive rights. Not only do these policies torpedo the realization of these rights, but they also render the essence of selfdetermination meaningless by destroying the social and territorial identity of its people. In this way, the Israeli-Zionist regime is employing segregation, fragmentation and isolation to undermine self-determination in both substance and essence. In doing so, Israel seeks to de-legitimize and dissolve the internationally recognized Palestinian right to self-determination, thus “eliminating” the Palestinian people. Israel’s policies of segregation, fragmentation and isolation are interwoven into the very fabric of Israel and the power structure at its core. In this way, delineation of clear and distinct illustrations of these policies at play can be 57 United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [OCHA], West Bank Access Restrictions, map of the West Bank and East-Jerusalem, July 2018, available at: https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/ default/files/wb_closure_2_0.pdf 58 UN-Habitat (International Advisory Board), Spatial Planning in Area C of the Israeli Occupied West Bank of the Palestinian Territory UN-Habitat, 2015, available at: https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/UNHABSTUDY_ MAY15.pdf 22