▲ The Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip is in rubble.Photo Xinhua
AP and Europa Press
The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, September 21, 2024, p. 18
Qabatiya. Israeli soldiers yesterday threw four apparently lifeless bodies from the roof of a building during a raid in the reoccupied West Bank, according to an AP journalist at the scene and videos obtained by the same agency.
The incident, which occurred in the town of Qabatiya, is the latest in a series of alleged violations committed by Israeli forces since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Tel Aviv said it was investigating the incident. One of the people thrown from a roof was identified by a relative and by Israel as Shadi Zakarneh, who the army said was the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the splinter armed wing of the Palestinian National Authority party, Al Fatah.
In a video obtained by AP, three soldiers can be seen picking up a rigid body and then dragging it to the edge of the roof of a multi-story building while other soldiers remain on the sidewalk. The perpetrators lean over the edge of the roof before throwing the body away.
Another video shows soldiers pushing three bodies off a roof adjacent to the first. One soldier holds one body by the leg over the edge before letting it fall floors below. Other soldiers then throw another body over the edge before kicking the third body off the edge.
Photos taken by AP during Thursday’s raid show an Israeli army bulldozer moving near the buildings where the bodies were dumped.
Qabatiya resident Amjad Abu al Roub said Israeli forces stormed the town at around 11:30 a.m., sparking a shootout in which four people were killed and soldiers threw the four bodies from rooftops at night. The excavator took them away, and they took them away without letting us say goodbye to them or give them a funeral.he said.
Israel said its troops killed seven fighters on Thursday. As of yesterday, no militia had claimed any of the dead as its fighters.
In the same area, three others were killed, 11 wounded and 10 arrested during the raid. At least one body was draped in the flag of Islamic Jihad, a group that operates in Gaza and the West Bank, at a funeral.
The improper treatment of dead bodies in the context of a conflict contravenes international humanitarian law as laid down by the Geneva Convention. The United Nations condemned on its news page the desecration of Palestinian bodies in Qabatiya. The White House described the images as deeply disturbingand demanded an explanation from Israel.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 22 Palestinians in airstrikes and tank attacks in the north and centre of the enclave. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed his departure for New York for a day, where he will address the UN General Assembly, scheduled for 24 September, due to the security situation on the border with Lebanon.
In addition, Israel has filed formal challenges with the International Criminal Court over the legality of arrest warrants against Israeli officials for their war actions in Gaza.