Israeli forces carried out overnight raids in the occupied West Bank, arresting hundreds and killing two people in the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Jalazone residents told Reuters news agency on Monday that Israeli forces raided the camp and carried out widespread arrests, where they clashed with gunmen and youths who threw stones.
About 20 people were arrested, according to the Health Ministry.
Israeli forces have currently retreated to the outskirts of the camp, the residents said.
The Israeli army has not issued a statement about the incidents.
At least, 120 militants said to be Palestinians were arrested across the West Bank overnight, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports, including 59 in the city of Hebron, among which were 40 workers from the Gaza Strip.
The European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday urged faster aid deliveries to Gaza, saying the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers would debate calling for a “humanitarian pause” in the war.
“I think a humanitarian pause is needed to allow the humanitarian support to come in and be distributed, seeing that half of the population of Gaza has been moving from their houses,” Borrell said.
Norway backs war crime probe
Norwegian Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl condemned attacks on civilians and announced Norway is “prepared to provide resources quickly” if the country receives a request to contribute to an investigation of possible war crimes in Gaza and Israel.
“War crimes are never acceptable” and “those guilty of any war crimes must be held accountable,” the minister said in a statement on Monday, according to a CNN report.
“Regardless of who is behind it, civilians have special protection against attacks in a conflict,” Mehl said, reiterating that Norway “will make available capacity related to a possible investigation of war crimes in Gaza and Israel if desired.”
“It is inhumane how civilians are affected in the bloody conflict in Gaza and in Israel,” Mehl added. “Thousands of civilians have already been killed on both sides. Norway condemns illegal attacks on civilians regardless of who commits them.”
Mehl also urged the international community to “come together to protect fundamental principles in a war.”
Villagers displaced
Some 19,646 people have left villages in south Lebanon due to cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israel, the UN’s International Organisation for Migration said Monday.
The Iran-backed Shiite group has launched increasing attacks on Israel, raising fears it intends to open a Lebanese front in support of ally Hamas.
Israel has ordered the evacuation of thousands of people from a string of communities near its northern border, without giving an exact figure for the displaced.
At least 40 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, mostly combatants but also at least four civilians, one of them a Reuters journalist. Four people have been killed in Israel, including three soldiers and a civilian.
UN meets Thursday
The United Nations General Assembly will meet Thursday to discuss the conflict triggered by the attack by Hamas militants on Israel, the body’s president announced in a letter to member states.
The Security Council has so far failed to agree on a resolution concerning the war, but a number of states including Jordan on behalf of an Arab group of nations, Russia, Syria, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, formally requested General Assembly President Dennis Francis to schedule the meeting.
Last week, the UN Security Council, regularly divided on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, rejected a Russian draft resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause.”
Only five of the 15 member states had supported the text, which condemned all violence against civilians and all terrorist acts but did not name Hamas, an unacceptable omission to the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
Washington then vetoed a second resolution put forward by Brazil as the text did not mention Israel’s right to defend itself.
Twelve out of 15 Council members voted in favor of that resolution, which also condemned the “heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas,” while Russia and the United Kingdom abstained.
The United States was the only vote against it, but as one of the body’s five permanent members, its vote counts as a veto.
The Security Council will meet to discuss the issue Tuesday ahead of the General Assembly’s gathering Thursday at 10:00 am (1400 GMT).
Source | Punchng
