A wounded Palestinian protester is evacuated after he was shot by Israeli troops near the border between Israel and Central Gaza Strip October 13, 2015 (Photo: Reuters)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Israel on Tuesday to carry out a "serious review" on whether its security forces are resorting to excessive force in clashes with Palestinians.
Ban finds "the apparent excessive use of force by Israeli security forces" to be "troubling," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters as violence continued in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
This "demands serious review as it only serves to exacerbates the situation leading to a vicious cycle of needless bloodshed," he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday Israel would use "all means" available to end Palestinian violence and that new security measures were planned.
The UN chief was due to sit down with Security Council envoys for a luncheon meeting on Tuesday to discuss mounting Israeli-Palestinian violence.
A ministerial-level meeting of the Security Council on the crisis in the Middle East is scheduled for October 22.
After initially breaking out with attacks and violent protests in occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank, unrest has spread to Gaza, with clashes along the border in recent days leaving nine Palestinians dead from Israeli fire.
The crisis started in late July when an 18-month old toddler Ali Saad Dawabsha was burned to death and three other Palestinians were severely injured after their house in the occupied West Bank was set on fire by Israeli settlers.
The settlers smashed the windows of two homes in the village of Duma near Nablus and threw Molotov cocktails inside the buildings. Dawabsha died after sustaining serious burns as a result of the attack.
The parents of the toddler, Riham and Saad, and their other son Ahmad lost their lives after suffering serious injuries as a result of the attack.
On October 1, an alleged Hamas cell shot dead an Israeli settler couple in the West Bank in front of their children.
There were repeated clashes at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in September between Israeli forces and Palestinian youths.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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