国际英语新闻:Abbas requests UN to probe "Israeli crimes"

RAMALLAH, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas requested on Sunday the United Nations to form an international fact-finding committee to investigate what he described as ongoing Israeli violations against the Palestinians.

Abbas's comments came after his meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Robert Serry, the UN special envoy on the Middle East peace process.

His request was officially handed to Serry in a letter that will be delivered to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

After the meeting, Abbas told reporters that he has requested the international committee to probe "the Israeli terrorist crimes " against the Palestinian people including the crime of burning a Palestinian child alive in Jerusalem.

Palestinians have accused three Israeli suspects of kidnapping and killing a 17-year-old Palestinian boy in east Jerusalem on Wednesday.

The boy was killed days after the Israeli army found the dead bodies of three missing teenagers near Hebron in the West Bank.

Abbas added that Israeli forces have killed 16 Palestinians, including children and women, when conducting a manhunt in the West Bank territories in the past two weeks.

He also asked for providing the Palestinians with international protection, pointing out that what called "the terror of the settler groups" has increased by 41 percent during the first half of 2014.

He added that the Palestinian leadership is preparing for a series of measures to curb the settlers' offensives as well as the Israeli army's attacks on the Gaza Strip.