The MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK expresses its shock at Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, for his condemnation of Palestinians following the gun-battle in which 12 Israeli soldiers and security were killed. Sixteen other Israeli soldiers were wounded, and three Palestinian freedom fighters heroically lost their lives.

The presence of 450 fanatic Settlers in Hebron in the midst of 130,000 Palestinians is in violation of the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Convention and International Law. These Settlers, protected by a phalanx of Israeli Occupation forces, had already entered their illegal Settlement of Kiryat Arba, when the soldiers were engaged in battle.

The UN Charter itself permits the Palestinians the right to resist, by any and all means, the military occupation by Israel. The occupation of Hebron is brutal, with prolonged curfews, attacks on Palestinian villages by rampaging Zionist Settlers with the collusion of Israeli soldiers, looting, harassment, indiscriminate violence, widespread arrests and torture, demolishing of homes and confiscation of land and water-wells - all of which makes life unbearable. These acts, under international law, is a crime against humanity.

Instead of condemning the Palestinians for their courageous acts of valour to free themselves from oppression, Kofi Annan should implement the scores of UN resolutions, which Israel has arrogantly and defiantly ignored. Kofi Annan's censuring the Palestinians struggle to free themselves from the yoke of oppression as a "despicable terrorist attack ...harmful to the Palestinian cause" leaves no doubt that the United Nations and its Secretary -General, is a tool in the hands of USA/UK/Israeli axis.

In order to restore faith in the United Nations and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan needs to clearly proclaim, in accordance to the founding principles of the United Nations, the Palestinian right to resist the longest, inhuman, illegal military occupation in modern times.