AL calls for int'l protection of Palestinians against "Israeli violations"

CAIRO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Arab League (AL) called on the International community to provide protection for the Palestinian people against what it referred to as "Israeli violations and crimes," the pan-Arab body said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The International community and the United Nations Security Council are required to provide International protection for the Palestinian people in implementation of relevant International legitimacy resolutions," Saeed Abu Ali, AL assistant secretary general for the occupied Palestinian and Arab lands, said in the statement.

Abu Ali condemned what he described as "field executions carried out by the Israeli occupation," referring to an Israeli gunfire attack on Monday that left two Palestinians dead and one wounded in the village of Kafr Ni'ma in the suburbs of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"The Israeli occupation forces killed the two Palestinian youths in cold blood and made up excuses and lies to justify the crime and avoid its responsibility," said the senior AL diplomat.

He stressed the importance of sending a UN investigation committee to probe such Israeli violations against Palestinian people.

The decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on since the Western-backed creation of Israel by occupying Palestinian territories in 1948.

The deadlock of the peace process between the two sides is largely attributed to the debatable status of Jerusalem, the issue of the Palestinian refugees and Israel's settlement expansion policy that has always been rejected even by the International community as well as its strongest ally, the United States.