School children walk through partially destroyed streets in Jenin in the West Bank. (file)
This article is published in association with United Nations.
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) called on Friday for an end to senseless killings in the occupied West Bank, where a pregnant Israeli woman was among the latest victims.
OHCHR has urged Israel to stop all extrajudicial executions and other unlawful use of force and ensure all those responsible are brought to justice.
Over the last two weeks, Israeli security forces killed two Palestinian men in planned summary executions, while seven others were killed in conditions that raise concerns over the use of unnecessary or disproportionate lethal force, the office said in a statement.
On 8 May, Israeli undercover forces appear to have summarily executed a 30-year-old Palestinian man who was being sought in the old city of Nablus.
CCTV footage suggests that an undercover officer killed the man while he tried to surrender and then shot him again as he lay on the ground, seemingly to “confirm the killing”, OHCHR said.
No evidence of threat
Moreover, the video evidence appears to contradict claims that the man was armed and posed a threat to the officers.
In another incident in Nablus, disguised Israeli security forces chased and killed a 39-year-old Palestinian man they were seeking out in Balata refugee camp on 2 May.
“Although Israeli security forces claimed that they found a gun and cartridges in his car, they made no claim that he posed a threat to life at the moment he was shot,” the statement noted.
This past Wednesday, Israeli security forces reportedly fired live ammunition and injured a young Palestinian man near the Qalandiya Refugee Camp in Jerusalem. A video shows two Israeli soldiers repeatedly kicking him in the head while he lay injured on the floor from a wound to the thigh.
OHCHR said the soldiers then walked away, without carrying out an arrest or providing medical assistance to the man.
End collective punishment
The pregnant Israeli woman, 30, was reportedly shot and killed by armed Palestinians while on the highway near Brukhin settlement, west of Salfit, on Thursday.
She was on the way to the hospital to give birth and was being driven by her husband, who was badly injured, according to media reports.
Following the incident, Israeli security forces closed several checkpoints in the northern and central West Bank.
They also imposed severe movement restrictions particularly around Burqin and Salfit, while an Israeli minister called for the “flattening” of Palestinian villages in response.
OHCHR said Israeli security forces must ensure that measures adopted following the attack comply with international law, including the prohibition of collective punishment.
UN deplores ‘criminalisation’ of education
Meanwhile, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, reported that its schools in East Jerusalem remain empty after Israeli forces enforced their closure last week, affecting nearly 800 students.
“Schools that have been providing education for decades now stand silent, and the daily life of these children has been shattered,” the Director of UNRWA Affairs for the West Bank, Roland Friedrich, said in a tweet on Friday.
He said Israeli forces returned to the schools at the Shu’fat camp and forced their way inside “in a clear attempt to verify that no educational activities were taking place.”
Heavily armed personnel also roamed the schoolyards searching for children and teachers, he added.
“The criminalisation of education at UN schools in East Jerusalem by Israeli authorities is reprehensible at all levels,” said Mr. Friedrich, calling for classrooms to be re-opened immediately.
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