Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday called for international protection for Palestinians against “extrajudicial killings” by the Zionist occupation forces.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday called for international protection for Palestinians against “extrajudicial killings” by the Zionist occupation forces.

Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, Abbas asked the Security Council to “urgently… set up a special regime for international protection for the Palestinian people”.

Abbas warned that human rights abuses in the occupied territories, including east Jerusalem, were the worst since the Zionist entity was self-declared in 1948.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 64 Palestinians have been killed by the occupation security forces across the territories since the start of the month as atrocities spread around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem.

Abbas accused the Zionist authorities of carrying out “extrajudicial killings against defenseless Palestinian civilians” and terrorizing the population as a “collective punishment”.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN’s human rights chief, said: “The violence between Palestinians and Israelis will draw us ever closer to a catastrophe if not stopped immediately.”

He added: “In the context of suspected attacks, several Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces, sometimes allegedly acting with disproportionate force, to the extent that extrajudicial killings are strongly suspected.”

The Zionist entity occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed the city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish 'state.'