A UN human rights official has said Israel may have committed a war crime following an investigation into the shooting of two Palestinian boys in the West Bank.
The two children, eight-year-old Adam al-Ghul and 15-year-old Basel Abu el-Wafa, were shot and killed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the city of Jenin in November.
Shocking CCTV footage of the incident in the West Bank – which is not controlled by Hamas – showed how the pair appeared to flee from a heavily armoured IDF convoy before being gunned down.
One bullet hit Adam in the back of the head, while Basel was shot twice in the chest.
The teenager can be seen struggling on the ground in apparent agony for at least half a minute before he died – but Adam was killed instantly when the Israeli round shattered through his skull.
Eight-year-old Adam al-Ghul was shot in the head by IDF soldiers in November in the West Bank city of Jenin
Basel Suleiman Tawfiq Abu Al-Wafa, 15, was also killed in the gunfire in November
CCTV footage shows the boy circled in red being shot during an Israeli military raid in Jenin
An unexploded Israeli missile lies among the rubble of a destroyed building in the north of Al Nusairat refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, 29 April 2024
More than 34,300 Palestinians and over 1,455 Israelis have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), since Hamas militants launched an attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, and the Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank which followed it
In the days after the shooting last year, an official with the Palestinian Red Crescent said the children were standing on a side street of central Jenin’s main thoroughfare – an area theoretically off limits to the Israeli military as it is under the sole control of the Palestinian Authority.
But the IDF convoy passed them after having been involved in an early morning raid in Jenin in which the Israeli military claimed it killed terrorists from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The footage shows how the children were hit by gunfire from roughly 40-50 feet away.
The IDF claimed that Basel was holding an explosive device when he was shot, and officials at the time said the ‘suspects hurled explosives toward IDF soldiers’.
The teenager can be seen holding something in his hand at the time of the shooting, but it is not clear what the object was.
The boys cannot be seen throwing anything at the IDF convoy in CCTV footage, and most of them appeared to be running away when the gunfire rang out.
Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on human rights, said there was a possibility the IDF committed a war crime in killing the two boys upon reviewing materials provided by the BBC following an investigation into the incident.
The rapporteur pointed out that there may have been legal grounds for the IDF to deploy lethal force on Basel if he was in fact holding an explosive.
But he said there was no legal justification for the killing of eight-year-old Adam.
‘This appears to be a violation of the International Humanitarian Law prohibitions on deliberately, indiscriminately or disproportionately attacking civilians, a war crime, and a violation of the human right to life,’ Saul told the BBC.
The IDF maintains that the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the two boys are under review.
But there is little hope the investigation will turn up findings that could see the soldiers in question punished or reprimanded.
It comes as human rights group Amnesty International said in a recent report that there were several instances in which Israeli forces deployed disproportionate and unnecessary force against civilians in the West Bank, conducted unlawful killings, and denied medical assistance to those injured.
Though the bulk of Israel’s military operations are unfolding in Gaza, the latest figures suggest 492 people have also been killed in the West Bank since October 7.
A BBC investigation into the shooting provided materials to human rights advocates, lawyers and war crimes investigators
Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on human rights, said there was a possibility the IDF committed a war crime in killing the two boys upon reviewing materials provided by the BBC following an investigation into the incident
Red Crescent first aiders are pictured in action close to the scene of Adam’s shooting in Jenin, West Bank, November 2023
Israeli military vehicles travel in a single-file line as a convoy moves through the West Bank city of Jenin
Israel has long maintained its army is among the world’s most disciplined and says its military operations in Gaza are dedicated to rooting out Hamas.
IDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said that Israel’s rules of engagement – which have not been made public – mean that his men operate according to clearly defines parameters and principles.
‘We cannot fight when discipline and our principles are not clear and are not followed,’ Halevi said recently.
‘A commander cannot skip instructions without approval if there is no operational and self-evident emergency reason for doing so.’
But a slew of incidents in recent months appear to show that the IDF is by no means the morally just and disciplined fighting force its commanders claim.
Besides the shooting of eight-year-old Adam, an Israeli drone killed seven foreign aid workers, including three British citizens, when it fired three separate missiles at three different vehicles part of a clearly marked World Central Kitchen aid convoy.
The heinous attack prompted international outrage and questions over the IDF’s decision-making – particularly after two drone operators told The Telegraph in December that they never operate a drone with lethal payload without a lawyer on an uplink, plus eyes on the ground and a senior officer in the room.
Two military commanders were dismissed from their posts and a third was reprimanded over the strike, with the IDF ultimately admitting they had mishandled critical information and violated the army’s rules of engagement.
That incident followed the tragic shooting of three Israeli hostages in Gaza City in December.
A man stands by a destroyed car of the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) as it sits along Al Rashid road, between Deir Al Balah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip
Wreckage of a World Central Kitchen vehicle in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip after seven aid workers – including three British ex-servicemen – were killed in an Israeli drone strike
Israeli soldiers are pictured in the Gaza Strip as the war rages on between Israel and Hamas
Three Israeli hostages killed mistakenly by Israeli forces in Gaza in December had been holding up a white flag. Left to right: Alon Shamriz, Samer El-Talalka and Yotam Haim
The death of the three hostages sparked anger in Israel. Pictured: Relatives and supporters of hostages held by Palestinian militants demonstrate outside the Israeli ministry of defence in Tel Aviv
Yotam Haim, 28, Alon Shamriz, 26, and Samer El-Talalka, 22, were gunned down by soldiers from their own nation – a shocking incident which sparked fury on the streets of Tel Aviv.
Again, Israeli officials said the hostages were fired upon against Israel’s rules of engagement.
And in the days after the outbreak of war in October, a single Israeli airstrike on Jabalia refugee camp is believed to have killed more than 100 civilians.
The eye-watering civilian death toll is one of the hallmarks of Israel’s war in Gaza, and suggests the IDF’s already murky rules of engagement have been loosened considerably.
Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its operations in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attacks, mostly due to brutal bombing campaigns that have reduced much of Gaza’s infrastructure to rubble.
An investigation by Israeli newspaper Haaretz also suggested in March that the IDF has broken down Gaza into a network of ‘free-fire zones’ – where any person present is presumed a terrorist and liable to be treated with lethal force.
‘From our understanding, looking at the IDF’s behaviour and targeting, it makes it clear that the tolerance for civilian [casualties] is systematically far worse than in past wars,’ Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of the thinktank Ofek, told The Guardian.
- The BBC’s findings are part of a new BBC documentary which has investigated the conduct of the Israeli security forces in the West Bank. The Other War is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now or at 9pm this evening on BBC Three
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk