UN: Gaza suffering 'massive' rights violations

A senior United Nations official described Gaza as suffering "massive" human rights violations during a visit to the territory on Nov. 20 and urged all sides to be bold in trying to end the violence. "The violation of human rights I think in this territory is massive," Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told reporters during a visit to Beit Hanoun, a town the Israeli army shelled earlier this month, killing 19 civilians. "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." Arbour, on a five-day trip to the region, spent time at the house of a family who had lost more than a dozen members in a shelling on Nov. 8, when Israel says a mistake led to the barrage of artillery shells hitting the neighborhood. More than 350 Palestinians, almost half of them civilians according to Palestinian doctors and human rights workers, have been killed since Israel launched an offensive in Gaza in late June.