Monitoring Desk
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has voiced alarm at an Israeli regime minister’s “unfathomable” call to obliterate an entire Palestinian village.
Turk made the remarks in Geneva on Friday, days after the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the Palestinian Huwara village “needs to be wiped out,” adding that Israel should do it.
Speaking before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN rights chief denounced the remarks as “an unfathomable statement of incitement to hostility and violence.”
UN rights chief terms the situation as a tragedy
“The situation in the occupied territory of Palestine is a tragedy above all for the people of Palestine,” Turk told the 47-member Council as he formally tabled a report on the situation in the occupied territories of Palestine.
Smotrich’s remarks came after a score of armed Israeli settlers stormed Huwara and nearby villages and torched dozens of houses and cars, according to media reports. They had been angered at the death of two Israeli settlers by a Palestinian in Huwara village.
One Palestinian was killed during the Israeli settlers’ rampage, and at least 390 others were wounded, with Palestinian media reporting attacks and stabbings with metal rods and rocks.
Since the start of 2023, at least 68 Palestinian citizens have been killed due to the violence, including five killed by Israeli settlers’ gunfire, 13 children, four older people, and one prisoner.
Turk warned the Council that the “surging violence is condemning innocent people,.” He called on “decision-makers to step back from the precipice to which increasing violence and extremism have led.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, the UN rights chief called for the Israeli government to end its occupation of and new settlement activities across the Palestinian territories.
