GENEVA (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime has systematically deprived Palestinians of their human rights, with 1.9 million in Gaza "caged in a toxic slum from birth to death”, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said on Friday.
Opening a special session of the UN Human Rights Council that could set up a commission of inquiry into recent violence, Zeid sharply criticized the regime, saying its troops had killed 60 Palestinians last Monday alone.
"Nobody has been made safer by the horrific events of the past week,” he said. "End the occupation, and the violence and insecurity will largely disappear.”
Palestinians gathered on Friday for fresh protests in the Gaza Strip after the Zionist regime’s massacre of more than 60 people in the besieged enclave on Monday.
The committee which organized weekly "March of Return” rallies has called on the Gazans to come out en masse on the first day of the fasting month of Ramadan, under the slogan "Friday for the martyrs and the wounded.”
Zionist snipers, tanks and armored vehicles were deployed near the Gaza fence after they killed at least 62 Gazans on the same day the U.S. opened its embassy in occupied al-Quds.
Tens of thousands of people have been protesting along the fortified fence since March 30, calling for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to be allowed to return to their homes now inside the occupied territories.
On Thursday, the regime carried out airstrikes on what it described as militant sites in Gaza, apparently targeting Hamas which it accuses of organizing protest rallies. The Palestinian Health Ministry said one man was injured during the attacks.
The regime was also scrambling to thwart a special session by the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday to decide whether to dispatch "an independent commission of inquiry” to investigate allegations of war crimes in Gaza.
The team would be mandated to look into "alleged violations and abuses, including those that may amount to war crimes and to identify those responsible,” read the text of a resolution submitted on Thursday night.
The commission should look at "ending impunity and ensuring legal accountability, including individual criminal and command responsibility, for such violations,” it added.
The Israeli mission at the United Nations has been ordered to prevent the investigation, said a Thursday report by Israel’s Channel 10. 
Meanwhile, international condemnation of the regime’s killing, which shocked the world by its ferocity, continued. On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the "heinous acts” committed by the regime.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who was addressing a meeting of the Arab League, called the carnage "a bloody racist massacre committed by the Israeli occupation forces in cold blood against our defenseless people."
More than 2,700 Palestinians were wounded as the Zionist troops used snipers, tank fire and tear gas to target the demonstrators. A Canadian physician was shot by a Zionist sniper in both legs while treating the injured.