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U.N. slams rights abuses in Gaza

Rory McCarthy

Jerusalem: The top U.N. human rights official said on Monday Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip had suffered ``massive'' human rights violations.

Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, travelled to the town of Beit Hanoun, where Israeli artillery killed 18 members of a single family two weeks ago as they slept in their house.

She said she would use a five-day trip to the region to call on Palestinian and Israeli leaders to stop further violence.

``The violation of human rights I think in this territory is massive,'' Ms Arbour said as she toured the town in the northern Gaza Strip. ``The call for protection has to be answered. We cannot continue to see civilians, who are not the authors of their own misfortune, suffer to the extent of what I see.''

She met members of the Athamna family who survived the attack and who showed her photographs of their dead relatives.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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