Tuesday, October 31, 2023

UN Rights Chief: Israeli Minister Incites Violence with Remarks

Date:

The United Nations’ human rights chief has criticized Israel’s far-right finance minister for calling for the Palestinian village of Huwara to be “wiped out.” Volker Turk described the comments as “an unfathomable statement of incitement to violence and hostility.” Turk made the remarks while presenting a report on the situation in the occupied territories to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. The report found that lethal force had been frequently employed by Israeli security forces regardless of the level of threat, and that 131 Palestinians were killed by ISF personnel over the past year in a context of law enforcement that is outside any context of hostilities. The EU’s envoy to the Palestinians also called for accountability and for perpetrators to be brought to justice after a rampage by Israeli settlers this week in the occupied West Bank in which one Palestinian was killed and dozens of houses, shops, and cars were torched. Amnesty International condemned the release of the suspects and the use of administrative detention, which it said was a practice that violates international law. Israeli rights group Yesh Din found that 93 percent of investigations into settler attacks in the occupied West Bank between 2005 and 2022 were closed without indictments.

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