Israel is preventing Palestinian development in parts of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem while pouring funding into Jewish settlements, the Human Rights Watch group said on Sunday.
Its 166-page report released by HRW focused on Israeli policies in areas of the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority does not hold any sway under interim peace deals and in East Jerusalem, annexed to Israel after its capture in a 1967 war.
"Israeli policies in the West Bank harshly discriminate against Palestinian residents, depriving them of basic necessities while providing lavish amenities for Jewish settlements," the New York-based organization said.
Asked about the report, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Human Rights Watch had repeatedly demonstrated an anti-Israeli bias.
"Unfortunately over the past years a series of documented cases have shown Human Rights Watch reports to have clearly been polluted by an anti-Israel agenda," said spokesman Mark Regev.
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