The Palestinian Authority (PA) said Friday that it will ask the UN Security Council for an urgent meeting to discuss attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, reported dpa.
"We will ask the Security Council to send an armed force to protect our Palestinian people, particularly in Hebron," Acting Foreign Minister Riad Malki told reporters in Ramallah after meeting with foreign diplomats in the central West Bank city and in Jerusalem.
He said the PA will ask the council to demand the removal of all settlers from the divided city, and that those responsible for going on a rampage against Palestinians in Hebron be brought to justice.
Settlers, reacting to the forced evacuation of a disputed house by Israeli authorities, have been attacking Palestinian civilians and property in the southern West Bank city, throwing stones, lighting fires, desecrating graves and on Thursday even firing live ammunition.
The violence followed an Israeli court order that the settlers should leave a building they occupied in the city since March 2007.
Malki said he held the Israeli government and army responsible for the settlers' actions, accusing the army of not doing anything to stop the settlers.
Malki said the settlers' violence left 30 Palestinians injured, including five with gunshot wounds, one of them critically so. He was transferred in an Israeli army helicopter to a hospital inside Israel.
The settlers also set on fire nine cars and caused damage to dozens of other cars, as well as setting five houses, two mosques and an ambulance on fire, said Malki in a final countdown of the damage caused by settlers' attacks on Thursday.
"We have asked the diplomats to convey the seriousness of the situation in Hebron to their governments," he said, adding the settlers were "terrorizing" the city's Palestinian population.
