Geneva (4 June 2024) – United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk today once again called for an end to the sharp escalation of deadly violence in the occupied West Bank since October 7 and urged accountability for the killing of more than 500 Palestinians by Israeli forces. Israeli security and settlers.
On Saturday, June 1, Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year-old Ahmed Ashraf Hemeidat and seriously wounded 17-year-old Muhammad Musa al-Bitar near the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp in Jericho. Al-Bitar died the next day. Their killing, along with the killing of four other Palestinians at the hands of Israeli security forces on Monday, raised the death toll of Palestinians since October 7 to 505, according to information evaluated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In the same period, 24 Israelis, including eight members of the Israeli security forces, were killed in the West Bank and Israel in clashes or alleged attacks by Palestinians from the West Bank.
As if the tragic events that have taken place in Israel and then in Gaza over the past eight months were not enough, the residents of the occupied West Bank are being subjected day after day to unprecedented bloodshed. It is illogical that so many lives could be claimed this way.” Brutality,” the High Commissioner said.
Türk added: “Killing, destruction and widespread human rights violations are unacceptable and must stop immediately. Israel must adopt rules of engagement that are entirely consistent with established human rights norms and standards and strengthen their implementation. It must also comprehensively and independently investigate any allegation of unlawful killing and hold those responsible accountable.
Impunity for such crimes has been expected for too long in the occupied West Bank. This impunity has created an environment conducive to more and more unlawful killings by Israeli security forces. International law must be respected and applied, and international law must be guaranteed.
The two children killed over the weekend were shot from a distance of approximately 70 meters as they fled after throwing stones and Molotov cocktails towards a military site outside a settlement near Aqabat Jaber, surveillance camera footage shows.
Israeli security forces have routinely used lethal force as a first resort against Palestinian demonstrators who throw stones, Molotov cocktails, and firecrackers at their armour in cases where those shots do not pose an imminent threat to life.
The widespread cases of Palestinian deaths after being shot in the upper part of their bodies, along with the pattern of preventing the provision of medical assistance to the injured, indicate an intent to kill in violation of the right to life rather than a gradual use of force and an attempt to calm tense situations.
The number of killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces, which had reached record levels in the first nine months of 2023, has risen sharply following horrific attacks by Palestinian armed groups on Israel last October. Since the beginning of 2024, Israeli security forces have killed approximately 200 Palestinians, compared to 113 deaths in the same period in 2023 and 50 in the same period in 2022.
Since October 7, despite the absence of armed hostilities in the occupied West Bank, Israeli security forces have carried out at least 29 military operations, including air strikes by drones or warplanes and the firing of surface-to-surface missiles at refugee camps and other areas. Densely populated areas. In the course of these operations, 164 Palestinians were killed, including 35 children.
