U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement that in the past four weeks, 42 Palestinians had been killed and more than 5,500 wounded along the fence in Gaza, with no reports of Israeli casualties. “The loss of life is deplorable, and the staggering number of injuries caused by live ammunition only confirms the sense that excessive force has been used against demonstrators – not once, not twice, but repeatedly,” Zeid said. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it did had no immediate comment on Zeid’s statement. The government has said previously that it is doing what is necessary to stop the border fence being breached. International law permits the use of lethal force in cases of “extreme necessity”, but it was hard to see how stones or Molotov cocktails thrown from a great distance at heavily protected security forces could constitute such a threat, Zeid said.

Source: Sunday Times April 27, 2018 09:22 UTC