Israeli troops kill two Palestinians in Jenin as they try to surrender

Israeli soldiers have shot and killed two Palestinian men during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin as the pair attempted to surrender to the military, according to video footage and witness accounts from the scene.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said journalists in Jenin reported on Thursday that the two men had “pulled their shirts up, showing that they were unarmed” before the military ordered them to go back into a building that they had been holed up in.

“And then they were shot dead. They were executed,” Odeh said, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the slain men as Al-Muntasir Billah Abdullah, 26, and 37-year-old Youssef Asasa.

The Israeli army said in a statement that its troops had pursued wanted individuals who were “affiliated with a terror network” in the Jenin area and had “initiated a surrender procedure that lasted several hours”.

After the men exited the building, “fire was directed towards the suspects”, the statement said. “The incident is under review by the commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”

But Odeh noted that, historically, Israeli reviews of the killings of Palestinians typically “do not end in indictments or criminal investigations”.

Describing the shootings as “heinous extrajudicial killings” and a “deliberate Israeli war crime”, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the international community “to take immediate action to halt the Israeli killing machine”.

It said more must be done to “deter further crimes, and impose urgent international protection mechanisms for the Palestinian people”, including through United Nations peacekeeping forces.

Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party, also condemned the deadly shooting in Jenin as a “shocking crime”.

“The Israeli army executed two Palestinian men after they surrendered and were arrested in Jenin, in front of the cameras,” he wrote on X. “How can anyone stay silent about the Israeli war crimes?”

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir welcomed the killings, writing on social media that Israeli forces “acted exactly as expected of them – terrorists must die!”

Worsening violence

The incident comes as Israel deployed attack helicopters and drones in raids across the northern West Bank for a second consecutive day, as a months-long crackdown on Palestinians in the occupied territory intensified.

Israeli troops continued to lay siege to large swaths of the northeastern Tubas governorate on Thursday, a day after they launched a wide-scale military operation in the area.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least 25 Palestinians have been injured and 100 others have been detained since the Israeli incursion began on Wednesday.

Israel has said the operation aims to root out Palestinian armed groups, but residents say the military has carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, blocked journalists and ambulances, and damaged infrastructure.

Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have faced a surge of Israeli military and settler violence in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which United Nations experts and top human rights groups have said is a genocide.

The northern West Bank has been particularly hard-hit, with about 32,000 residents of several refugee camps in the area forced out of their homes since January and prevented by Israel from returning.

Last week, Human Rights Watch said the forced eviction of Palestinians from Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams refugee camps amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“With global attention focused on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank that should be investigated and prosecuted,” a HRW official said in a statement.

Violence part of ‘cruel system of apartheid’

On Thursday evening, Al Jazeera’s Odeh noted that the number of daily Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank has doubled over the past two years. “There are, on average, 47 Israeli raids on Palestinian communities every day,” she said.

Scores of Palestinians, including an 85-year-old man, were beaten by Israeli soldiers during this week’s military assault, Odeh added.

“[This raid] is more severe than other raids that are happening across the occupied West Bank. It is certainly the Israeli army flexing its muscle,” she said. “What we’re seeing is an escalated level of violence meted out to civilians.”

A representative for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) condemned the latest violence, noting that Israel continues to issue demolition orders in the northern West Bank despite “relentless” destruction over the past year.

Twelve buildings are slated for demolition in Jenin refugee camp later this week, Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA affairs for the West Bank, said in a social media post. Another 11 buildings are set to be partially demolished.

“This development marks the newest episode in continued efforts to re-engineer the topography of refugee camps in the northern [West Bank],” Friedrich wrote on X, noting that more than 200 buildings had demolition orders against them in the camp since February.

“This systematic destruction goes against the basic principles of international law, and only serves to tighten the control of Israeli forces over the camps in the long term,” he said.

Amnesty International also described the intensified Israeli military operations as part of “Israel’s cruel system of apartheid against Palestinians” in the occupied territory.

“The international community must prevent an escalation of attacks on civilians in the West Bank and take immediate action towards bringing Israel’s unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza to an end,” the group said.