The UN’s senior human rights official has castigated Israel, saying there was little evidence that the country’s armed forces had attempted to minimise casualties during protests by Palestinians earlier this week that saw dozens of protesters killed.

Speaking at a special session of the UN human rights council, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said that while 60 Palestinians were killed and thousands injured in a single day of protests on Monday, “on the Israeli side, one soldier was reportedly wounded, slightly, by a stone”. “The stark contrast in casualties on both sides is … suggestive of a wholly disproportionate response,” he told the council.

His comments came as the Egyptian president, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, announced he had ordered the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for the entire Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the longest length of time since 2013. Sisi wrote on his official Twitter account late on Thursday that the opening would “alleviate the burdens of the brothers in the Gaza Strip”. The Rafah crossing is Gaza’s main gate to the outside world. Egypt has kept Rafah largely sealed off since 2013, after Egypt’s elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was ousted.(theguardian)…[+]