Two independent UN experts said on Wednesday that the “air strikes and ground operations” carried out by Israeli forces in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank this week “may at first glance amount to war crimes.”
Two UN rapporteurs pointed out that these “attacks are the worst in the West Bank since the destruction of the Jenin camp in 2002.”
The two experts are the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancourt. These two experts do not represent the position of the United Nations.
Albanese and Betancourt stressed that “Israeli army operations in the occupied West Bank, which kill and injure its inhabitants, destroy their homes and infrastructure, and displace thousands of people indiscriminately, constitute flagrant violations of international law and standards regarding the use of force and may amount to a war crime.”
On Wednesday, the Israeli army announced the end of a military operation in the occupied West Bank that killed 12 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier.
The operation, which was launched at dawn on Monday, is the largest in recent years in the West Bank, and hundreds of soldiers, marches and army bulldozers participated in the city of Jenin and the adjacent refugee camp, which is a stronghold of the armed forces. Palestinian factions.
About 4,000 Palestinians fled the Jenin refugee camp on Monday night after heavy airstrikes, Albanese and Betancourt said.
According to the two experts, the Israeli attacks were not justified under international law and “represented collective punishment for the Palestinian people.”
They stressed that “Palestinians (present) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are persons protected by international law and whose human rights are guaranteed, including the presumption of innocence”, emphasizing that “the occupying forces should not treat them as a collective security threat”. .”
Since the beginning of the year, tensions in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have escalated, after the formation in late December of the Israeli government, the most right-wing in the history of the country, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
