Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called Wednesday for the creation of a “special regime” for the protection of his people, as a wave of deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence showed no sign of abating.
Abbas called on the United Nations, “more urgently than any time before, to set up a special regime for international protection for the Palestinian people, immediately and urgently.”
Accusing Israel of carrying out “extrajudicial killings”, he called for the United Nations, and especially the Security Council, as well as member states to shoulder their responsibility.
“We need protection, and we look to you,” he told a special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council on the escalating crisis.
“Protect us. Protect us. We need you,” he said, warning that allowing the current situation to continue would “kill the last shred of hope for the two-state-solution-based peace.”
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein also voiced alarm, warning that the deadly violence rocking Israel and the Palestinian territories was “dangerous in the extreme” and could lead to a “catastrophe”.
The special one-hour meeting of the United Nations’ top rights body was a rare event, with only a single precedent: when Chilean President Michelle Bachelet spoke to the council in 2007.
