Palestinians ask for permanent UN observer force in West Bank

The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Tuesday asked the UN to deploy a permanent international force in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, following Israel's announcement it was suspending operations of an observer force that had been in the city of Hebron for more than 20 years.

The UN should "guarantee the safety and protection of the people of Palestine" until "the end of Israel's belligerent occupation", said Palestinian official Saeb Erekat.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. More than 600,000 Israeli Jewish citizens live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem deemed illegal under international law.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office said on Monday it would not extend the mandate of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), in the West Bank, saying "we will not allow the continuation of an international force that acts against us".

TIPH has deployed unarmed civilian observers from Norway, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey in Hebron since 1997.

They report on violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws.

Hundreds of hard-line Jewish settlers guarded by thousands of soldiers live in the heart of the city, which also has a population of over 200,000 Palestinians.

There was no immediate UN response to the Palestinian plea, but the UN human rights office in Geneva said that Israel "as the occupying power" must protect Palestinian civilians from settler violence.

UN rights office spokesperson Rupert Colville also highlighed a fatal Israeli settler attack in the West Bank over the weekend in which a Palestinian father of four was killed.

Thirty-eight-year-old Hamdi Naasan was "shot in the back and killed" in the village of al-Mughayyir near Ramallah, Coleville said.

He added that UN staffers reported the shooting after up to 30 Israeli farmers, some of them armed, attacked Palestinian farmers in their fields and used live ammunition to shoot at villagers and their houses.

Colville said about 20 villagers were wounded in the course of the day, amid a recent "surge of settler violence" in the West Bank that he said has reached its highest levels since 2015.

The Israeli police and military have launched investigations into the incidents.

The violence came days after Israel charged a Jewish teenager with manslaughter in the death of a Palestinian woman in the West Bank.