JULIA FRANKEL
Updated Fri, December 15, 2023
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Friday said it was opening a military police investigation into the killing of two Palestinians in the West Bank after an Israeli human rights group posted videos that appeared to show Israeli troops killing the men — one who was incapacitated and the second unarmed — during a military raid in a West Bank refugee camp.
The B’Tselem human rights group accused the army of carrying out a pair of “illegal executions.”
The security camera videos show two Israeli military vehicles pursuing a group of Palestinians in the Faraa refugee camp in the northern West Bank. One man, who appears to be holding a red canister, is gunned down by soldiers. B'Tselem identified the man as 25 year-old Rami Jundob.
The military jeep then approaches Jundob as he lies bleeding on the ground and fires multiple shots at him until he is still. Soldiers then approach a man identified by B'Tselem as 36-year-old Thaar Shahin as he cowers underneath the hood of a car. They shoot at him from close range.
Btselem said that Shahin was killed instantly and Jundob died of his wounds the next day.
Israel's military said its military police unit opened an investigation into the Dec. 8 shootings “on the suspicion that during the incident, shots were fired not in accordance with the law.” It said that the findings would be referred to a military prosecutor, an indication that criminal charges could be filed.
Israel rarely prosecutes such cases, and human rights groups say soldiers rarely receive serious punishments even if wrongdoing is found. In a high-profile case, an Israeli soldier was convicted of manslaughter and served a reduced nine-month sentence in jail after shooting a badly wounded Palestinian who was lying on the ground in 2016.
The army recently opened an investigation into a soldier who shot and killed an Israeli man who had just killed a pair of Palestinian attackers at a Jerusalem bus stop. The soldier apparently suspected the Israeli was also an assailant — despite kneeling on the ground, raising his hands and opening his shirt to show he wasn't a threat. The shooting underscored what critics say is an epidemic of excessive force by Israeli soldiers, police and armed citizens against suspected Palestinian attackers.
In a separate incident Friday, police said they had suspended officers caught on video beating up a Palestinian photojournalist in east Jerusalem. The photojournalist was identified on social media as Mustafa Haruf, who works for the Turkish news agency Anadolu.
In the video, one officer approaches Haruf and strikes him with the butt of his gun while another officer pushes him against a car. One points his gun at Haruf and another pulls him to the ground in a headlock. An officer kneels on Haruf's body, the other officer kicking Haruf repeatedly in the head as he screams in pain.
Other officers stand by, watching and pushing back shocked onlookers.
“The Border Police Command views the conduct of these officers as inconsistent with the values of the force,” the police said in a statement as it announced the suspensions of the officers and an investigation.
Both incidents come as tensions in the West Bank and east Jerusalem have been inflamed by the war between Israel and Hamas, with Israelis on edge and bracing for further attacks. Palestinians and human rights groups have long accused Israeli forces of using excessive force and skirting accountability.
Since the outbreak of war, violence in the West Bank from Israeli forces and settlers has reached record levels. Since Oct. 7, 287 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. That's the deadliest year on record in the West Bank in 18 years, it said.
AFP
Thu, December 14, 2023
An Israeli army patrol car blocks off one of the entrance roads to Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank as troops press a raid that has killed 11 Palestinians since Tuesday (MARCO LONGARI)
Israeli forces killed 11 people in a multi-day raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said Thursday.
The latest death was a 17-year-old boy who the ministry said was shot in the chest by the Israeli army in Jenin.
In addition to 11 killed by Israeli forces, Palestinian health officials said a sick 13-year-old boy also died after Israeli forces prevented him from reaching hospital.
Israeli troops launched their incursion into the northern city of Jenin and its refugee camp early Tuesday and were still present on Thursday afternoon.
The military said Wednesday that Israeli forces had seized dozens of weapons and dismantled multiple bomb-making laboratories.
Four soldiers were wounded in "controlled explosions" or by friendly fire, the army said Wednesday without commenting on the Palestinian casualties.
Speaking Thursday at the site where an Israeli drone strike killed three people, a resident told AFP the trio were unarmed civilians.
At a home damaged during the ongoing raid, a boy said Israeli soldiers stole money, gold and mobile phones.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and in recent months troops have carried out repeated deadly raids on Jenin, with the casualties including militants and children.
Jenin camp is home to more than 23,000 people, according to the United Nations, and militants have a strong presence there.
The Islamist group Hamas -- which Israel is battling in the Gaza Strip -- on Wednesday called the Jenin raid a "desperate attempt to extinguish the flame of resistance".
More than 280 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7, health officials say.
Over the same period, 18,787 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The war broke out with an attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel, which Israeli officials say killed around 1,200 people.
Most of those killed in both Israel and the Palestinian territories have been civilians.
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