As an “execution without trial” he described two of the Israeli security forces in the occupied during their operation in Jenin yesterday.
The execution was revealed when footage of the incident recorded by Palestine TV was released. They show Israeli security forces opening fire on two men in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, as they appear to surrender.
What exactly happened
The footage shows the men exiting a building and lifting their shirts before lying on the ground in an apparent gesture of surrender. Members of the Israeli security forces are then seen leading them back into the building and then shooting them.
“We are horrified by the apparent killing by Israeli border guards yesterday of two Palestinian men in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, in yet another apparently summary execution,” UN Human Rights Office spokesman Jeremy Lawrence told reporters in Geneva.
The Israeli army and the country’s police said they had launched an investigation into the shooting, claiming that forces opened fire on suspects who had exited a building.
On Friday, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group announced that one of the men was its commander and the other its fighter.
“Heinous” act
Mahmoud Asasa, 43, whose 37-year-old brother Youssef was one of the two men fatally shot, said: “The act was absolutely heinous. A man who raises his hands and surrenders may be arrested, but to exterminate him in such a violent manner is very wrong.”
The shootings came as Israeli forces raided Jenin, a day after launching a military operation in the nearby city of Tubas. Israeli forces have been waging a continuous assault on the northern West Bank cities since January this year.
“Everyone saw that they posed no threat to the Israeli forces, but the soldiers decided to shoot them and kill them on the spot. It was an execution in front of the cameras,” said Sai Parnes of the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Dead terrorists – Ben celebrates – Gvir
The Israeli army and police said in their joint statement that the two men were wanted individuals linked to a “terrorist network”.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has publicly supported the military and police unit involved in the shooting.
“(Israeli) fighters acted exactly as expected — terrorists must die!” Ben-Gvir wrote on Platform X after the incident.
The UN’s Lawrence said Ben-Gvir’s comments were “absolutely disgusting”. He added that 21 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces so far in November, nine of them children.
The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry, which exercises limited civilian administration in the West Bank, condemned the shootings as a “horrific extrajudicial execution” and a war crime.
