Human rights groups are condemning the killing of two Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank by Israeli security forces, saying video capturing the incident showed the men appearing to surrender while unarmed before being shot dead.
“We’re appalled by the brazen killing by Israeli border police yesterday of two Palestinian men in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in yet another apparent summary execution,” United Nations human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a news briefing in Geneva on Friday, calling for an independent investigation into the killings.
The two men killed on Thursday, Al-Muntasir Abdullah, 26, and Yousef Asasa, 37, appeared to be unarmed and surrendering during a raid in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestine TV news footage showed.
The Israeli military and police issued a joint statement saying that they had opened an investigation after forces fired toward suspects who had exited a building.
Mahmoud Asasa, 43, whose brother Yousef was one of the two men shot dead, told Reuters “the act was so hideous. A person who raises his hands and surrenders can be arrested, but eliminating him in such a brutal way is very wrong.”
Militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Friday claimed one of the men as one of its commanders and the other as a fighter.
In the joint statement on Thursday, Israeli authorities said the two men who were shot were wanted individuals who were affiliated with a “terror network in the area of Jenin.”
It did not specify what the two men were accused of, nor did it disclose any evidence of their alleged link with a terrorist network.
Israeli national security minister backs forces
Laurence said the killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the West Bank have been surging “without any accountability … even in the rare case when investigations are announced.”
“There are mechanisms, there’s rule of law, there’s due process and ways in which you handle cases. The solution is not to pull a gun and shoot … simple as that.”
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was granted an expanded security portfolio in 2022 that included responsibility for the border police in the occupied West Bank, issued a statement giving his “full backing” to the military and the police unit involved in the shooting.
“The fighters acted exactly as expected of them — terrorists should die!” he wrote on the social media platform X Thursday.
At the Friday briefing, Laurence said the UN is aware of the comments, adding that they need to be “deplored.”
“Statements by a senior Israeli government official sought to absolve Israeli security forces of responsibility, raising serious concerns about the credibility of any further review or investigation conducted by an entity that is not fully independent from the government,” he said.
‘This is chilling,’ rights group says
Video shows the men leaving the building and lifting their shirts before lying on the ground in apparent surrender. The forces then appeared to direct them back into the building before shooting them.
“Still, the soldiers who then had full control of the situation got them to retreat back into, that storage room they were hiding in beforehand and shot them dead,” Sarit Michaeli, international director with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
“What you saw in that footage was that from the perspectives of those soldiers, that was very ordinary … and this is chilling.”
Michaeli said it’s crucial for the international community to intervene, as an internal investigation is unlikely to lead to any action.
“The people who are really responsible for this, beyond the individual soldiers on the ground, are Israeli policymakers — both politicians and high military officials,” Michaeli told CBC News on Friday.
“Those people will not even be investigated, let alone held accountable for their actions.”
The Foreign Ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited civic rule in the West Bank, has condemned the shooting as a “heinous extrajudicial killing” and a war crime.
Earlier attacks killed 2 teens
The Jenin raid marks the latest assault in a months-long Israeli campaign across northern West Bank cities. Israeli forces on Wednesday launched an operation on the nearby city of Tubas.
Last week, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teenagers — aged 16 and 18 — during an overnight raid on a town near Ramallah in the West Bank, residents said.
Israeli police said in a statement that its forces opened fire at four people who had “posed an immediate threat” during an operation in the Kafr Aqab area but did not provide evidence. Police said its forces came under attack by stone-throwing and fireworks during the operation.
The West Bank has experienced a surge in violence since a truce deal was reached last month in Gaza. The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect on Oct. 10, but during the period when fighting was expected to be halted, health authorities in Gaza have reported deaths from Israeli attacks regularly, with at least 347 Palestinians killed and nearly 890 injured. Three Israeli soldiers have also been killed during that time.
Fighting broke out in October 2023, following a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed nearly 69,000 Palestinians, local health authorities say, and destroyed much of the enclave.
Palestinians in the West Bank have faced tightening military restrictions over the past two years, curbing their freedom of movement.
The UN’s Laurence said the organization’s human rights office has documented 1,030 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 223 children, since Oct. 7, 2023.
In November alone, 21 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, of which nine of them were children, according to Laurence.
“Impunity for Israel security forces’ unlawful use of force and ever-growing Israeli settler violence must end,” he said.
“The high commissioner urges an independent, prompt and effective investigation into the killings of Palestinians, and those responsible for violations must be held to account.”
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