UN deplores Israel’s ‘summary execution’ of two Palestinians in West Bank
The United Nations has condemned the Israeli forces for killing two Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank as ‘summary execution’.
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Reporters documented the two Palestinian men surrendering and being unarmed before Israeli forces fatally shot them during the raid in Jenin on Thursday.
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN human rights office, on Friday denounced the “brazen killing” and described it as “yet another apparent summary execution.”
He said UN rights chief Volker Turk is calling for “independent, prompt and effective investigations into the killings of Palestinians,” and for those responsible for killings and other violations in the occupied West Bank to “be held fully to account.”
Laurence noted that the incident came as “Killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank have been surging without any accountability.”
The UN rights office spokesman said Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 1,030 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East al-Quds, between October 7, 2023, and November 27 of this year, according to the latest UN data.
The figure includes at least 223 Palestinian children.
“Impunity for [Israeli] forces’ unlawful use of force and ever-growing Israeli settler violence must end,” Laurence urged.
Videos circulating on social media and broadcast by television channels show the two Palestinian men exiting a building surrounded by armed Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Jenin, lifting their shirts and lying on the ground in an apparent surrender.
The forces then appeared to direct the men back inside the building before opening fire at close range, with the men slumping down, apparently lifeless.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the two men as 26-year-old al-Muntasir Abdullah and 37-year-old Yousef Asasa. It added that their bodies were being held by Israeli forces.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the shooting as a “war crime” and a “brutal” summary execution.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it “strongly condemns the brutal field execution carried out by the Israeli occupation army against two Palestinian youths,” calling it a “deliberate Israeli war crime.”
The Palestinian Hamas resistance group called it a “cold-blooded execution of two unarmed Palestinian youths.”
Palestinians in the West Bank have been subjected to escalating Israeli military actions and settler violence, amid the genocidal war in Gaza that has killed nearly 70,000 people in the coastal territory since October 2023.
