U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday called for an international force to be deployed to stem violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
"The situation is so dangerous and the humanitarian and human rights situation so appalling, the proposition that a force should be sent in there... can no longer be deferred," Annan said in brief remarks to journalists.
Annan, who was speaking after addressing the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, did not specify whether the force should be dispatched before Israelis and Palestinians agreed to a ceasefire.
Nor did he say who should take part in the force.
"It is urgent," he said, saying that the force needed to create a secure environment and provide space for diplomatic and political negotiations.
Annan said he fully backed the attempts of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to broker a ceasefire between the two sides.
He again urged Israel to withdraw its forces immediately from Palestinian territories occupied in a two-week Israel military offensive.
"I would still urge Israel to withdraw immediately, which the U.N. Security Council has requested," Annan said.
Meanwhile, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said Friday he was "deeply shocked" by the Israeli army's disclosure that hundreds of Palestinians had been killed in fighting at the refugee camp at Jenin.
Straw said he had instructed Britain's ambassador in Tel Aviv, Sherard Cowper-Coles, to find out the precise circumstances in which the deaths had occurred.
On Friday, Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said the Israelis were trying to cover up the killing of civilians in Jenin camp. "They want to hide their crimes, the bodies of the little children and women," Erekat told The Associated Press.
Erekat said that U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell should visit the Jenin camp and witness the "war crimes."
On Thursday, Palestinians called for the United Nations to investigate the killings in Jenin refugee camp. Mohammed Dahlan, a senior aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, told Reuters the Palestinian Authority had sent letters appealing to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and heads of other international organisations for an investigation.
Palestinians have accused Israel of carrying out massacres in Jenin and elsewhere, and have said 500 Palestinians, some of them in Jenin camp, have been killed in Israel's 13-day-old offensive in the West Bank.
"We asked him (Annan) to form an investigation committee to probe the war crimes, the ethnic cleansing policy and the massacres of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the Jenin camp committed by the Israeli army," Dahlan said. (Albawaba.com)
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