A/HRC/31/73 Palestinians and some 11,300 injured, and 17 Israeli fatalities and some 170 injured.1 The Special Rapporteur wishes to reiterate two points, related to the current violence, which are interlinked. The first is that any wanton act of individual violence, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis, is unacceptable and must be investigated and prosecuted in accordance with international standards. The second is that the upsurge of violence with serious concerns of excessive use of force by Israeli security forces in the context of attacks and alleged attacks by Palestinians and during clashes, and ongoing settler violence, is arising within a pre-existing context. Anyone seeking to quell the unrest would, notwithstanding the unequivocal position that individual perpetrators of crimes must be held responsible, need to look to the context and related root causes of the overall heightened tension. To simply condemn individual attacks does not offer any viable way out of the violence rolling over the Occupied Palestinian Territory. 6. It is part of the current context that there seems to be an atmosphere of despair, particularly among the Palestinian youth, at the prolonged interference by Israeli authorities in every aspect of Palestinian life, the general absence of accountability for violations and abuses committed against them and the absence of any immediate prospects of an improvement in the situation. 7. On 13 July 2014, in a letter addressed to the Secretary-General, the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, formally requested that “the territory of the State of Palestine be placed under an international protection system by the United Nations”. President Abbas highlighted the long-standing occupation and the prevention of the exercise of the right of Palestinians to self-determination. In the letter, three overarching objectives of the protection system for Palestine were detailed including ensuring respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and international law and international humanitarian law and to providing protection for the Palestinian people and civilian population from the ongoing occupation and acts of aggression by Israel (see S/2014/514, annex). 8. On 21 July 2014, the Secretary-General transmitted the letter to the President of the Security Council (S/2014/514). On 21 October 2015, the Secretary-General, referencing his earlier letter, further transmitted a summary of historical precedents of international protection regimes for areas of territories and their inhabitants (see S/2015/809, annex). The Secretary-General requested the President of the Security Council to bring his letter dated 21 October 2015 and the accompanying annex to the attention of the members of the Security Council. 9. The Special Rapporteur will not comment on the specifics of the request for international protection, except to reiterate that long-standing Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, such as continued settlement expansion, the construction of the wall, and the blockade of Gaza, are illegal under international law and well-known to entail ongoing and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians. II. Non-cooperation by Israel with the mandate 10. The Special Rapporteur deeply regrets to report that he has been obstructed in his ability to fulfil his mandate by the lack of cooperation of Israel. The Special Rapporteur assumed the mandate as an impartial observer and has from the outset made great efforts to engage in dialogue with the Government of Palestine and the Government of Israel. He has 1 4 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Casualties in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, 1 October to 30 November 2015”, 14 December 2015.