According to the UN special envoy for the Middle East, more than 200 Palestinians and over 30 Israelis have been slain so far this year in the occupied West Bank and Israel, making this the deadliest year in the region since 2005.
On Monday, Tor Wennesland, the United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, warned the UN Security Council that Palestinians’ rising despondency about the future and the lack of progress towards attaining an independent state are fueling the escalation of violence.
He told the Security Council from Jerusalem, “Palestinians and Israelis are killed and injured in near-daily violence,” including “just hours before this briefing,” when another tragic shooting incident killed an Israeli in the West Bank.
Wennesland told the Security Council that radicals on both sides had stepped into the power vacuum created by the lack of movement toward a political vision that addressed the basic causes fueling the conflict.
