A spokesman for the UN human rights office on Friday condemned the “brutal killing” that took place a day earlier in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, which was captured on camera, as “another apparent summary execution”.
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“The killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank are increasing without any accountability,” Jeremy Lawrence told reporters in Geneva.
He said Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 1,030 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 7, 2023 and November 27 this year, according to the latest UN data. That figure includes at least 223 Palestinian children.
“The Israeli security forces’ unlawful use of force and the ever-increasing Israeli settler violence must end,” Lawrence said.
Israel faced widespread condemnation on Thursday after footage from Jenin showed its forces shooting two unarmed Palestinian men at close range as they attempted to surrender to forces during a raid.
Witnesses said the men – later identified as 26-year-old al-Muntasir Billah Abdullah and 37-year-old Yusuf Asasa – had lifted up their shirts to show that they were unarmed, before Israeli forces ordered them to return to the building in which they were hiding.
The footage shows that he was shot by Israeli forces.
“The evidence and footage shows that they were unarmed, had surrendered and were in no danger,” Palestinian human rights group al-Haq said in a social media post on Friday.
“This reflects Israel’s widespread and systematic policy of extrajudicial and deliberate killings in the occupied Palestinian territory,” the group said, “including Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
“We call on the international community to act now, imposing sanctions and ensuring accountability.”
‘Complete impunity’
“The incident is being reviewed by commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies,” the Israeli military said in a statement Thursday.
But experts have noted that Israel rarely opens criminal investigations into killings of Palestinians by the military – even when there is footage of the incidents – and the soldiers directly involved are rarely held accountable.
They also say top members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government have incited violence against Palestinians.
Shortly after the killings in Jenin, Netanyahu’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media that Israeli forces “acted exactly as they were expected to – the terrorists must die!”
Ben-Gvir is pushing Israel to impose the death penalty for so-called “terrorism” crimes – a measure that rights advocates say would apply “exclusively against Palestinians.”
The killings in Jenin come as Israeli politicians are demanding formal annexation of the West Bank amid a wave of Israeli attacks in the area.
Shai Parnes, public outreach director of Israeli rights group B’Tselem, said Israelis have “absolute impunity” for violence against Palestinians. “Again and again, what we are seeing is that Israel is unwilling and unable to investigate itself,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Occasionally we are forced to do this (investigation) because of international coverage in the media or international pressure from other states,” Parnes said.
“But every time, the result is almost the same. The entire ‘investigative apparatus’ in Israel has been whitewashed… and their goal is to pretend that they are investigating (while) in reality giving free rein to the criminals.”
He said Ben-Gvir’s comments celebrating the killings in Jenin show that Israel has no intention of conducting a credible investigation.
“We already know what the outcome is going to be because the minister in charge of the investigators has already announced that it is OK,” Parnes said.
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