Israeli baby killing terrorist act: UN chief

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has described the recent Israeli arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler in the West Bank as a “terrorist act”.

On Friday, Ban condemned the tragic “murder” of the 18-month-old Palestinian child and called for the perpetrators to be promptly brought to justice.

“Continued failures to effectively address impunity for repeated acts of settler violence have led to another horrific incident involving the death of an innocent life. This must end,” Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement released on Friday.

Ban also expressed his deepest condolences to Ali Saad Dawabsha's family members, who were themselves critically wounded in the arson attack, adding that the violence was the outcome of Israel's illegal settlement policy.

“The absence of a political process and Israel's illegal settlement policy, as well as the harsh and unnecessary practice of demolishing Palestinian houses, have given rise to violent extremism,” the statement further read.

In an official statement on Friday, Egypt's top Muslim authority, al-Azhar, also denounced the heartbreaking murder of the Palestinian toddler in the West Bank as a “hideous crime.”

The Israeli aggressions “contradicted the directives of all heavenly religions, all norms, as well as international conventions," said al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, decrying “the appalling silence of the international community” on such crimes. 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also held the Israeli regime responsible for the attack and ordered Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki to file a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the horrific incident, denouncing the “war crimes and crimes against humanity committed each day by Israelis against the Palestinian people.”

The European Union also urged the Israeli regime to demonstrate "zero tolerance" for the persisting settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, adding that the “cold-blooded killing of the Palestinian toddler… highlights the urgent need for a political solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

Moreover, various Palestinian factions have voiced outrage at the recent killing of the Palestinian infant by Israeli settlers, and called for action to stop the recurring settler acts of violence.

The Palestinian baby boy was burnt to death in the early hours of Friday, when Israeli settlers, wearing black balaclavas, smashed a window and threw a molotov cocktail into the parents’ bedroom while they were asleep in the West Bank village of Duma, south of Nablus.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli settlers have carried out at least 120 attacks on Palestinians in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the West Bank since the beginning of 2015.

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