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Top UN Official Urges Israel to Refrain from Future Incursions
The chairman of a UN Palestinian rights committee urged Israel to immediately withdraw its forces from all areas under Palestinian control and to refrain from future incursions, according to a document released Thursday at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Papa Louis Fall, chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said in a letter to the secretary-general that the Israel Defence Forces have conducted a series of incursions into a number of Palestinian- controlled areas which contribute significantly to the escalation of tension.
"As a result of shelling and gunfire from the Israel Defence Forces, more than 20 innocent Palestinian civilians, including children, lost their lives throughout the Palestinian Territory," he said.
"By occupying areas under the full control of the Palestinian Authority, creating facts on the ground, carrying out extrajudicial assassinations and destroying Palestinian houses and other property, Israel is inflicting great suffering on the Palestinian people and is doing irreparable damage to the principles and foundations of the peace process," the letter said.
Given the potential for the conflict to widen, the chairman said the Security Council should "act decisively in order to prevent further bloodshed and destruction."
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