Lorenzo Tondo
The Guardian / September 20, 2024
IDF says it is reviewing the incident, which took place during a raid in the town of Qabatiya.
Jerusalem – Israeli soldiers have been filmed pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, in the latest in a series of suspected violations by Israeli forces since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that rights groups say show a pattern of excessive force toward Palestinians.
The incident took place in the town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, where the Israeli military has been carrying out large-scale raids since late August that the Palestinian health ministry says have killed dozens of people.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement: “This is a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers. The incident is under review.” The IDF declined to comment when asked if the soldiers involved were being investigated.
The Associated Press (AP) said one of its journalists had witnessed the incident. The agency could not immediately confirm the identities or whereabouts of the bodies, nor the death toll from the Israeli raid.
Israel said its troops had killed seven militants on Thursday, four during a gun battle and three in an airstrike on a car carrying people who had fired at its soldiers. As of Friday, no militant group had claimed any of the dead as its fighters.
Ameed Shehadeh, a correspondent for Al-Arabi who also witnessed the incident, told CNN: “A bulldozer tried to demolish the house to bring the bodies down. That didn’t work. Soldiers went up and kicked and pushed the bodies off the roof, as we have seen.”
He said a fourth body had been thrown off an adjacent roof a few metres below.
In footage obtained by AP, three soldiers can be seen picking up what appears to be a stiff body and dragging it towards the edge of a roof as troops stand on the ground below. The soldiers on the roof peer over the edge before heaving the body off.
On an adjacent rooftop, the soldiers hold another apparently lifeless body by its limbs and swing it over the edge. In a third instance, a soldier kicks a body toward the edge before it falls from view. Photographs captured by AP during Thursday’s raid show an Israeli army bulldozer moving near the buildings where the bodies were dropped.
When withdrawing from raids, the army usually leaves behind any Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire. Occasionally it takes them to Israel.
Under international law, soldiers are supposed to ensure bodies, including those of enemy combatants, are treated decently.
“There is no military need to do this. It’s just a savage way of treating Palestinian bodies,” said Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, after watching the footage.
He said the video was shocking but not surprising, and he was doubtful Israel would properly investigate. The Israeli military rarely prosecutes soldiers in cases of reported harm to Palestinians, rights groups say. “The most that will happen is that soldiers will be disciplined, but there will be no real investigation and no real prosecution,” he said.
The Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti called the treatment of the bodies “a barbaric act that shows the extent of the degradation and brutality of the behaviour of the occupation army”.
The US national security council spokesperson John Kirby said: “We’ve seen that video, and we found it deeply disturbing. If it’s proven to be authentic, it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behaviour by professional soldiers.”
Tensions remain high in the West Bank, where Israeli military operations have been going on for week, posing a significant threat to local communities. A UN worker was fatally shot by a sniper while on the roof of his home in the northern West Bank on Saturday.
More than 700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the war in Gaza erupted on 7 October, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The northern West Bank has been the scene of some of the worst violence since the start of the war.
Israel claims the raids are necessary to stamp out militancy, which has flared since 7 October. In that time, Palestinian gunmen have attacked Israelis at checkpoints and staged several attacks inside Israel.
Israel staged its deadliest raid into the northern West Bank since the war began earlier this month, killing at least 33 people.
In a separate development on Friday, Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians in tank fire and airstrikes on northern and central areas of the Gaza Strip, medics said, as tanks advanced further into north-west Rafah near the border with Egypt. Residents reported heavy fire and explosions in the eastern areas of the city, where Israeli forces blew up several houses.
The Israeli military has said that forces operating in Rafah had killed hundreds of militants, located tunnels and explosives and destroyed military infrastructure.
The unrelenting fighting between the Israeli troops and Hamas militants in the territory is taking place at the same time as a parallel conflict between Israel and Hezbollah intensified this week.
Lorenzo Tondo is a Guardian correspondent
Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
