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Palestinian militants fired a barrage of rockets early on Thursday, setting off air raid sirens in southern Israel, as violence erupted for the second day in a row during a sensitive period of overlapping holidays. The barrage came after another tense night at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Israeli police clashed with Muslim worshippers attempting to stay overnight, in defiance of long-standing compromises about management of the compound. The Israeli military said seven rockets launched from the Gaza Strip all exploded in midair. No group claimed responsibility for the barrage. Unrest in the region was less intense than the previous days, but the rocket fire raised fears of a wider conflagration as Jews began the week-long Passover holiday, hundreds of Christians in the Old City gathered for Holy Thursday at the Holy Sepulcher to mark the Last Supper, and Muslims marked the Ramadan holy month. Al-Aqsa is the third-holiest site in Islam and stands o
The UN rights chief said on Thursday that Israeli forces may have committed war crimes in the latest, 11-day war with the militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip. The remarks by Michelle Bachelet came as the UN's top human rights body opened a one-day special session to discuss the plight faced by Palestinians in the fighting this month. She said that Hamas' indiscriminate rocketing during the conflict was also a clear violation of the rules of war. The UN high commissioner for human rights spoke to the Human Rights Council, chronicling the most significant escalation of hostilities since 2014 that left devastation and death in the Gaza Strip before a cease-fire last week. Air strikes in such densely populated areas resulted in a high level of civilian fatalities and injuries, as well as the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure," she said. Such strikes raise serious concerns of Israel's compliance with distinction and proportionality under international ...