Bad publicity, but who cares? "Under review" by IDF. cough cough.
Israeli police accused of executing unarmed Palestinians in the street Footage shows two men shot at close range after surrendering in West Bank stand-off
Tim Sigsworth
27 November 2025 8:29pm GMT
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Israeli forces have been accused of executing two unarmed Palestinian men after they surrendered in the West Bank.
Footage captured two Israeli border police officers shooting the pair dead at close range in Jenin after they emerged from a building with their hands in the air.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the incident was under “review” but that the two men were terrorists who had earlier attacked its forces.
Their bodies were detained by Israeli security forces and they were later named as Mahmoud Qassem Abdallah, 26, and Youssef Asasa, 37.
Gen Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, has now ordered an investigation into the incident.
Military officials reportedly said the footage was “very difficult to watch”.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, described the killings as a “deliberate Israeli war crime”.
Video footage filmed on Thursday showed a group of Israeli personnel surrounding the two men as they emerged from underneath a metal shutter.
According to a joint IDF and police statement, the pair were holed up in the building in an hours-long “surrender procedure”.
The men exited a building surrounded by armed forces, before lifting their shirts and lying on the ground in apparent surrender. The forces then appeared to direct the men back inside the building before opening fire at close range.
A Palestinian Authority spokesman said: “Israeli occupation forces executed two young Palestinians in Jenin in cold blood, even after they had turned themselves in.
“An outright extrajudicial killing in blatant violation of international humanitarian law.”
People help to clear the site of the alleged shooting in Jenin Credit: Getty Images
The incident was also criticised in Israel, with Nir Hasson, the Jerusalem correspondent for the daily newspaper Haaretz, saying: “There is no universe in which this is not murder.”
The IDF and police said the two men were “wanted individuals who had carried out terror activities, including hurling explosives and firing at security forces”.
“The forces entered the area, enclosed the structure in which the suspects were located and initiated a surrender procedure that lasted several hours,” a spokesman said. “Following the use of engineering tools on the structure, the two suspects exited.
“Following their exit, fire was directed toward the suspects. The incident is under review by the commanders on the ground and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s security minister, said the troops ‘acted precisely as is expected of them’
Israeli Army Radio, which is operated by the IDF, reported that the two men were shot dead after disobeying instructions from border police personnel.
“When the terrorists came out, we began to carry out security checks on them,” the officers were reported to have said. “We did not know if they were carrying weapons or explosives.
“We began instructing them what to do for their own safety but the terrorists acted contrary to the instructions they received. At a certain point, one of the terrorists decided to enter the building contrary to the instructions, and the second terrorist followed him, so both were shot.”
telegraph.co.uk |
