UN warns of Israeli-Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ as unrest persists

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, as a month-long spate of confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces showed no signs of abating.

An Israeli soldier in Hebron shot dead a Palestinian who had stabbed and lightly wounded a soldier, Israeli forces said. 

Hours later, at a nearby location, a second Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli forces when he tried to knife a soldier, who was unhurt, the Israeli army said, according to Reuters.

Since the latest wave of unrest began on October 1, at least 62 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israelis in the West Bank and in Gaza. 

Of those, 35 were men and women armed mainly with knives and in few cases with guns, Israel said, while others were shot during anti-Israeli protests. Many were teenagers.

Eleven Israelis have been killed in stabbings and shootings.

The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre, a Palestinian institution based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said information from families and the Palestinian health ministry showed Israel was holding 29 bodies of Palestinians killed in the violence, including at least 17 from Hebron.

Asked about the figures, the Israeli military declined comment, referring queries to the prime minister’s office, where a spokesperson could not immediately be reached.

Meanwhile, the United Nations warned Wednesday that a deadly surge in violence between Israelis and Palestinians is leading them towards “catastrophe”, Agence France-Presse reported.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights HH Prince Zeid said the latest flare-up in the six-decade-old conflict was “dangerous in the extreme”.

“The violence between Palestinians and the Israelis will draw us ever closer to a catastrophe if not stopped immediately,” he said.

World leaders desperately want to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in April 2014 to avoid a deeper slide into violence that many fear could lead to a third Palestinian Intifada.

But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that “it is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations” and warned a continuation of the current violence could “kill the last shred of hope for the two-state-solution-based peace”.

He urged the UN “to set up a special regime for international protection for the Palestinian people”.
Abbas accused Israel of “extrajudicial killings of defenceless Palestinian civilians, [and having] detained their corpses, including children”.