Israeli soldiers on Thursday pushed three apparently lifeless bodies from rooftops after launching an offensive in the northern West Bank — in the Israeli-occupied town of Qabatiya in Jenin governorate, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene and video footage obtained by the agency and others released, for example, by the Palestinian government.
An AP reporter in the town of Qabatiya saw three soldiers pushing the bodies from the rooftops of adjacent multi-story buildings, causing them to fall out of sight. It was the latest in a series of violations by Israeli forces since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas that rights groups say amounts to Israeli genocide.
“This is a serious incident that does not correspond to the values of the IDF or the expectations of IDF soldiers,” the army said in a statement, using the acronym by which it is known. The army said it would review the incident, but did not immediately open a formal investigation.
The AP news agency could not confirm the identities or whereabouts of the bodies thrown from the rooftops or the total number of dead following the Israeli incursion into the city on Thursday.
Brutality
Videos posted on social media show the moment an Israeli soldier shoots the three Palestinians on a rooftop. The footage later shows a soldier pushing the body of one of them, who falls to the ground. The other two were dumped in the same manner, according to WAFA.
Medical teams report that Israel did not allow them to approach the victims until six hours after they were shot by security forces.
“The bodies were then moved by an Israeli army excavator and are now in their possession,” local sources said.
The military raid caused panic among students at nearby schools in Abu al-Rab and Qabatiya, with around 1,000 students evacuated in buses due to heavy gunfire nearby. Local journalists also reported that soldiers fired tear gas at them.
“This is another failed attempt that will not break the determination of our heroic people or shake their steadfastness and commitment to the path of resistance,” Hamas said in a statement today commemorating the dead, whom it did not claim as its militiamen.
Jenin governorate has been one of the historic strongholds of Palestinian armed resistance since the first Intifada of the 1980s. Israel justifies these assaults by the aim of killing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but civilians and minors also die during their incursions into the occupied territories.
In early September, the army launched one of the most significant offensives in the last two decades in the West Bank, with simultaneous raids on Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas, three cities in the north of the occupied zone, where it killed at least 34 people, including militiamen, but also civilians and several minors.
The Israeli army killed seven Palestinians and injured 11 others in the town of Qabatiya, in the Jenin governorate (north of the occupied West Bank), during a 10-hour military raid, local sources reported this morning.
In a second drone strike, the Israeli army killed a young man in a vehicle, local sources confirmed last night, while three others died in clashes with troops. Hours earlier, soldiers shot dead three other Palestinians stationed on a roof.
According to medical sources from the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 11 other people were injured, four of them seriously, including a 16-year-old boy with a “very critical gunshot wound” to the chest who was taken to hospital.
So far in 2024, some 375 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by Israeli fire; most of them militiamen or attackers, but also civilians, including at least 61 minors, according to EFE’s count.
In Jenin governorate alone, at least 108 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, including drones, so far in 2024; it is the hottest spot in the entire West Bank.
