Hawzah News Agency –Former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair said on Thursday that his country is an "apartheid regime" and urged the international community to recognise this reality and hold Israel accountable.

In an article published in the Irish newspaper The Journal, Ben-Yair said he agreed with the Amnesty International report last week classifying Israel as an apartheid state.

"It is with great sadness that I must also conclude that my country has sunk to such political and moral depths that it is now an apartheid regime," Ben-Yair said.

The 79-year-old, who served as Israel's attorney general between 1993 and 1996, said Israeli courts uphold "discriminatory laws" to expel Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which contributes to the "ongoing domination over these territories."

"It is the Israeli ministerial cabinet for settlements that approves every illegal settlement in the occupied territories. It was me, in my role as the attorney general who approved the expropriation of private Palestinian land in order to build infrastructure such as roads that have entrenched settlement expansion," he said.

Millions of Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are being permanently deprived of their civil and political rights, Ben-Yair added, saying that the "status quo on the ground is a moral abomination."

Ben-Yair's remarks have appeared a week after Amnesty became the latest organisation to label Israel an apartheid state, joining a cadre of human rights groups that have used the term to describe Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians.

Apartheid is a legal term defined by international law that refers to systematic oppression by one racial group over another.

As well as serving as attorney general, Ben-Yair was an acting Supreme Court of Israel judge.