Int'l campaign to protect Palestinians set to launch: Abbas

Ramallah, Dec 21 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has announced that a broad campaign to provide international protection for "the defenceless Palestinian people is about to launch".

Abbas made the remarks during a joint meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee and his Fatah movement's central committee that he chaired, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We will launch the campaign to put everyone before their legal and historical responsibilities to provide international protection for the defenceless Palestinian people in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza," Abbas said at the meeting.

He added that the world's continued silence and turning its back on Israel's crimes "can never be accepted."

Abbas said that the campaign comes "to confront the racist practices of Israel, and in light of the formation of an extreme right-wing government", adding that the time has come for the Palestinian people "to enjoy justice, fairness, and protection".

Abbas's statements come amid the ongoing tension in the West Bank between the Israeli army and the Palestin.

According to official Palestinian statistics, more than 200 Palestin have been killed since January.

Meanwhile, since March, 27 Israelis have been killed in operations carried out by Palestin in Israel.

Abbas considered the death of the sick prisoner, 50-year-old Nasser Abu Hamid, in an Israeli hospital Tuesday morning "an assassination and a full-fledged war crime", as Israel "prevented his struggling mother and all his family members from visiting him throughout the years of his illness".

The Palestinian Prisoners' Club Association, a non-government Palestinian organization, said that Abu Hamid, from a Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah, died in an Israeli hospital after years of suffering from cancer.