UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, started a
five-day visit to the Palestinian territories and Israel, and visited
Beit Hanoun town, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Arbour is
slated to meet Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
Arbour started her tour in Beit Hanoun, and visited a neighborhood were twenty Palestinian family members were killed when the army shelled, with heavy artillery, civilians houses earlier this month.
She urged Palestinian and Israeli leaders to “stop the cycle of violence”, and conduct more efforts to protect civilians.
During her Beit Hanoun visit, Arbour stated that she came there to “express her concern, bring some comfort, and to show the victims that the world has not abandoned them”.
“We cannot continue seeing civilians suffering while they are not the authors of their misfortune”, Arbour added.
As Arbour was visiting Beit Hanoun, the Israeli military bulldozers were uprooting nearby fields. The army claims that the fields are used by fighters to fire homemade shells into Israel.
The army was operating in Beit Hanoun during Arbour's visit, but the attack was in another part of the town.
