The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Saturday that 12 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the start of the year, and held the occupation authority responsible for ongoing crimes and atrocities in the occupied territories.
It said in a statement that three children were among those killed by the Israeli army in the past two weeks, the latest of whom were three men shot in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The escalating violations and crimes of the Israeli occupation (authority) would only embolden the Palestinians to uphold their rights, the ministry said, adding that Israel is fully and directly to blame for the “ongoing crimes against the unarmed people of Palestine, their land, homes, properties and sanctities.”
“Israel is carrying out extrajudicial killings and field executions and using live bullets with the intent to kill upon orders from the political and military echelons of the state of occupation”, it said.
The ministry called on the international community and the US administration to exert pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to stop the “bloody escalation”, and urged the International Criminal Court to quickly complete investigations in order to hold the occupying state and the perpetrators of crimes accountable.
Source: Jordan News Agency