Palestinian Territory – The Israeli army's extrajudicial killing of two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, who posed no threat, is part of a continuing pattern of deliberate extrajudicial killings across the occupied Palestinian territory. This crime constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law and amounts to war crimes, warranting international criminal prosecution.
Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians in the West Bank over the past two years through extrajudicial killings carried out after the victims were captured or arrested. Meanwhile, data from Euro-Med Monitor in the Gaza Strip indicate that about 9 per cent of all victims during the two years of genocide were deliberately killed by Israeli forces after being captured or detained.
On the evening of 27 November, an Israeli special forces unit unlawfully raided a house in the Jabal Abu Dhahir neighbourhood of Jenin and assaulted a man. During the raid, two men exited the house to surrender, unarmed and with their hands raised. Soldiers forced them back inside and shot them at point-blank range, killing them instantly, as documented in video footage of the incident.
The Israeli army's extrajudicial killing of two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, who posed no threat, is part of a continuing pattern of deliberate extrajudicial killings across the occupied Palestinian territory
Israeli forces then seized and withheld the bodies of the two victims, taking them along as they withdrew from the area. Verified footage shows that the shooting was carried out at close range, clearly indicating an intentional extrajudicial killing, without any form of engagement or confrontation.
Euro-Med Monitor verified the identities of the two victims as Al-Muntasir Billah Mahmoud Qasim Abdullah, 26, and Youssef Ali Youssef Asa'sa, 37.
This crime is not an isolated incident but part of a consistent and expanding pattern of field executions and deliberate killings of Palestinians. Euro-Med Monitor estimates that since October 2023, the Israeli army has carried out large-scale extrajudicial killings, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where preliminary data indicate that around 6,300 of nearly 70,000 Palestinians killed over the past two years died in circumstances amounting to deliberate extrajudicial execution by gunfire, drones, or being run over by tanks.
Among the incidents documented in the Gaza Strip was the killing of Dr Akram Abu Hasira and his wife on 21 December 2023, after Israeli forces forced the elderly couple to leave their home on Al Yarmouk Street in Gaza City. The soldiers then shot them and left them to bleed to death before setting their house on fire. Their relatives were unable to document the crime or bury the victims until after Israeli forces withdrew from the area, according to the testimony of their son, Mahmoud Abu Hasira.
Euro-Med Monitor documented the killing of Ahmed Suleiman Hassan Muhammad Abdel Aal, 60, who had a mental disorder, inside his home in the Jabalia camp on 13 December 2023, after he was shot by Israeli forces during their storming of the camp and raid on his house, following several consecutive days of besieging Al Yemen Assaeed Hospital.
Among these cases was the execution of Nawaf Muhammad Musa Al Za'anin on 10 December 2023 during the evacuation of displaced people from the Awni Al Hartani School in the Beit Lahia Project in the northern Gaza Strip. A resident of Beit Hanoun, Al Za'anin had been displaced with his family several times before Israeli forces stormed the school and killed him with a direct shot to the head.
The Israeli army also killed Khaled Mustafa Ismail Al Shafei, 58, and his eldest son Ibrahim, 21, shooting them inside their home in front of family members in Beit Lahia on Wednesday, 13 November 2024.
These documented crimes, from Jenin to across the Gaza Strip, dismantle the pretexts used by Israeli forces to justify the deliberate killing of Palestinians and show that this continuing pattern is driven by international silence, the failure to take effective measures, the entrenchment of impunity, and the absence of genuine accountability.
The States Parties to the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court must take immediate and concrete measures to hold Israeli officials accountable, including supporting the investigations of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court into the wilful killing of Palestinians, exercising universal jurisdiction to prosecute those who ordered and carried out these crimes, and imposing individual and economic sanctions, as well as a comprehensive ban on the supply of weapons, military and security technologies, and dual-use items used in grave violations.
Euro-Med Monitor calls for an end to the illegal occupation and settler colonial control imposed on the Palestinian people as the root cause of grave violations against them. Palestinians must be enabled to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and sovereignty over their land and resources, with full reparation for victims and their families ensured through compensation and restitution of rights and property. All those responsible for extrajudicial killings, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide must be held accountable before international and national courts.
