Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said that journalists in Jenin reported on Thursday that the two men had “pulled up their shirts, indicating they were unarmed” before the army ordered them back into the building.
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“And then they were shot. They were killed,” Odeh said, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified those killed as 26-year-old al-Muntasir Billah Abdullah and 37-year-old Yusuf Asasa.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its troops had pursued wanted individuals “associated with terrorist networks” in the Jenin area and had “initiated a surrender process that lasted several hours”.
After people exited the building, “fire was fired in the direction of the suspects,” the statement said. “The incident is being reviewed by commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”
But Odeh said that, historically, Israeli reviews of killings of Palestinians generally “do not end in indictments or criminal investigations”.
Describing the shootings as “heinous extrajudicial killings” and a “deliberate Israeli war crime”, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the international community to “take immediate action to stop the Israeli killing machine”.
It said more efforts should be made to “prevent further crimes and immediately implement international protection mechanisms for the Palestinian people”, including through UN peacekeeping forces.
Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party, also described the deadly shooting in Jenin as a “shocking crime”.
“Israeli forces killed two Palestinian men after they surrendered and arrested them in front of cameras in Jenin,” he wrote on X. “How can one remain silent about Israeli war crimes?”.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir welcomed the killings, writing on social media that Israeli forces “acted exactly as they were expected to – the terrorists must die!”
worsening violence
The incident came as Israel deployed attack helicopters and drones in raids across the northern West Bank for the second consecutive day, as a months-long crackdown on Palestinians in the occupied territory intensified.
Israeli troops continued to cordon off large parts of the northeastern Tubas governorate on Thursday, a day after launching a large-scale military operation in the area.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least 25 Palestinians had been injured and 100 others detained since the Israeli incursion began on Wednesday.
Israel has said the operation aims to root out Palestinian armed groups, but residents say the army has carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, blocking journalists and ambulances and damaging infrastructure.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have faced an increase in Israeli military and settler violence in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which UN experts and top human rights groups have called genocide.
The northern West Bank has been particularly badly hit, with about 32,000 residents of several refugee camps in the region forced from their homes since January and Israel barring them from returning.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Jenin, Tulkarem and Nour Shams refugee camps constitutes a war crime and crimes against humanity.
“With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that must be investigated and prosecuted,” an HRW official said in a statement.
Violence part of ‘brutal system of apartheid’
On Thursday evening, Al Jazeera’s Odeh noted that the number of daily Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank had doubled over the past two years. “There is an average of 47 Israeli attacks on Palestinian communities every day,” he said.
Several Palestinians, including an 85-year-old man, were beaten by Israeli soldiers during this week’s military offensive, Odeh said.
“(This raid) is more serious than other raids in the occupied West Bank. This is definitely the Israeli military showing its strength,” he said. “What we are seeing is an increased level of violence against civilians.”
A representative of the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) condemned the latest violence, noting that Israel continues to issue demolition orders in the northern West Bank despite “continued” destruction over the past year.
Twelve buildings in the Jenin refugee camp will be demolished this weekend, Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA affairs for the West Bank, said in a social media post. The other 11 buildings are set to be partially demolished.
“This development marks the latest episode in continuing efforts to remodel the topography of the refugee camps in the north (West Bank),” Friedrich wrote on X, adding that there were demolition orders against more than 200 buildings in the camp since February.
He said, “This systematic destruction goes against the basic principles of international law, and only serves to strengthen Israeli forces’ control over the camps in the long term.”
Amnesty International also described intensified Israeli military operations in the occupied territories as part of “Israel’s brutal apartheid system against Palestinians”.
“The international community must stop escalating attacks on civilians in the West Bank and take immediate action toward ending Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza,” the group said.
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