Antonio Guterres SEOUL, Aug 12 (AP/Reuters): Almost 40 Palestinian children have been killed so far this year in the occupied territories and in many incidents, Israeli forces appear to use lethal force in a manner that violates international human rights law, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said.
The United Nations rights chief issued a statement on Thursday expressing "alarm" at the large numbers of Palestinians - particularly children - who have been killed and injured by Israeli forces in occupied Palestinian territory so far this year.
"Inflicting hurt on any child during the course of conflict is deeply disturbing, and the killing and maiming of so many children this year is unconscionable," Bachelet said in a statement.
Nineteen Palestinian children were killed in occupied Palestinian territory in the last week alone, bringing the death toll of children since the start of the year to 37, according to the statement.
Seventeen of the children were killed during last weekend's attacks on Gaza by Israeli forces, and two more children were killed on Tuesday in Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces launched their bombardment of Gaza, flattening buildings and striking refugee camps across the territory, saying the onslaught targeted members of the Islamic Jihad armed group, including the group's senior commanders. Palestinian officials said the majority of those killed were civilians.
The toll of civilian casualties in the Israeli attack on Gaza "was heavy", the UN rights chief said.
"International humanitarian law is clear. Launching an attack which may be expected to incidentally kill or injure civilians, or damage civilian objects, in disproportionate manner to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited. Such attacks must stop," Bachelet said.
The UN human rights office has confirmed that among the 48 Palestinians killed in the three-day onslaught from Friday to Sunday, at least 22 were civilians, including 17 children and four women.
Nearly two-thirds of the 360 Palestinians reported injured in the Israeli offensive were civilians, including 151 children, 58 women and 19 older people, the UN said.
A Reuter report adds: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday proclaimed unwavering UN commitment to a fully denuclearized North Korea, even as a divided Security Council allows more room for the isolated country to expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
Meeting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul, Guterres said he affirms the UN's "clear commitment to the full, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and DPRK," using the initials of North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"There's a fundamental objective to bring peace, security and stability to the whole region," he told Yoon, while also praising South Korea's participation in international peacekeeping efforts and fighting climate change.
Guterres, who arrived in South Korea on Thursday, later met with South Korean Foreign Minster Park Jin for discussions that were expected to be centered around the North Korean nuclear threat.
North Korea has test-fired more than 30 ballistic missiles this year, including its first flights of intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as leader Kim Jong Un pushes to advance his nuclear arsenal in the face of what North Korea has called "gangster-like" US-led pressure and sanctions.
The unusually fast pace in weapons demonstrations also underscore brinkmanship aimed at forcing Washington to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and negotiating badly needed sanctions relief and security concessions from a position of strength, experts say.
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