"Please let me turn first to the security situation. Since the
last briefing to the Council, 89 Palestinians have been killed
by the IDF. In one week alone, from 4 to 10 October, 11
Palestinian children were killed. During the same period, 5
Israelis have been killed by Palestinians. Most of these deaths
occurred in circumstances which would appear to be in
contravention of Security Council Resolution 1435 by which both
sides were asked to cease all acts of violence and provocation.

In recent weeks the IDF have launched a series of
operations involving the use of tanks, bulldozers and
helicopters in the southern part of the Gaza strip, especially
in the city of Khan Younis and Rafah refugee camp, which the
Israeli Government claims are Hamas strongholds. On one
occasion a helicopter fired a missile into a crowd in front of
a hospital. Yesterday, Israeli tanks shelled the refugee camp
in Rafah, killing at least seven Palestinians and wounding 35
others, after a gunman shot at Israeli bulldozers. In this
incident two schools were hit, one run by UNRWA.

On 11 October in Nablus, a prominent figure in a women's
group advocating non-violence, who happens also to have been
the mother of a UNDP staff member, was shot dead in broad
daylight by the IDF while sitting on her verandah. Earlier
that same day, a midwife employed on a project of the British
Ministry DFID was cooking breakfast for her children when a
tank shell was fired into her kitchen, killing her.

These sorts of incidents, which the Secretary-General has
deplored, explain why he has twice in the last couple of weeks
called on the Government of Israel to live up to its
obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the