A UN envoy criticized Israel on Saturday for demolishing Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, calling the practice a violation of a six-month-old moratorium and a setback to peacemaking efforts.
Israel, which took the West Bank in a 1967 war, has often demolished dwellings built there without its permission. After a Palestinian revolt erupted in 2000, Israel also razed the homes of militants but abandoned the tactic five years later.
UN envoy Robert Serry said in a statement that Israel undertook in April to suspend demolitions but recently resumed them.
An Israeli official denied there had been any moratorium.
Serry’s statement deplored “the impact of these actions on some of the most vulnerable populations in the West Bank, with many poor families rendered destitute.”
The demolitions, Serry said, “send a discouraging signal regarding [Israel’s] support for the strenuous and concerted effort under way to improve conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory and build greater trust and confidence in support for the political process.”
Serry did not cite any specific demolition, but Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said at least some of the houses were built illegally on public land.
“The fact that the UN continues to ignore the specific circumstances of each case and prefers to express generalized criticism makes these statements very unhelpful,” Palmor said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
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