The United Nations today condemned what it called Israel’s “illegal airstrike” on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, which killed 18 people on Thursday night, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
“This attack is part of a very disturbing pattern of unlawful use of force by Israeli security forces during military-style operations in the West Bank, which has caused great suffering to Palestinians and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure,” said the Office of the High Representative. said the Commissioner of the United Nations Office for Human Rights, in his statement on the occupied Palestinian territory.
Israel’s military said on Thursday it had “killed” a local Hamas leader in an airstrike on the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, in a joint operation between the armed forces and the Shin Bet, its Israel’s internal security agency.
For the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, this is “another clear example of the systematic use of lethal force by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, which is often ineffective, disproportionate and, therefore, illegal”.
“The destruction of an entire building full of people by aerial bombardment shows Israel’s blatant disregard for its obligations,” he added, stressing that he called for an independent investigation into the operation.
Tulkarem had already been targeted in late August by Israeli air and ground strikes as part of a large-scale offensive against armed groups fighting against Israel in several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
Since the beginning of the October 7 war in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli army and Hamas, which broke out following the Palestinian Islamic movement’s unprecedented attack on Israel, violence between the Palestinians, on the one hand, and the Israeli army and settlers, on the other hand, have not stopped intensifying in the West Bank.
Source: RES/MPE