Israel is accused of targeting civilians in an attack that killed 7 people in the West Bank

The Israel Defense Forces claims the attack targeted a “terrorist squad”, but witnesses told the BBC the group posed no threat.

According to witnesses in the occupied West Bank, Israel is accused of attacking a group of Palestinian civilians with no ties to armed groups and who posed no threat to Israeli forces.

Seven men – four of whom were brothers – were killed in an Israeli airstrike on January 7 as they sat around a fire near the road through the village of al-Shuhada, 10 km from the city of Jenin.

The BBC spoke to relatives of the victims, witnesses who were in the area at the time of the attack and a paramedic at the scene.

All provided strong evidence that the men were not members of armed militant groups and that no clashes with Israeli forces were taking place there at the time.

Khalid al-Ahmad, the first paramedic to arrive that morning, is convinced that the men were doing nothing wrong.

“One of them was wearing slippers and pajamas,” he told the BBC. “Don’t think that anyone wants to resist [à ocupação israelense] Would you at least wear proper shoes?”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) linked the attack to a military operation that took place a few hours earlier in the Jenin refugee camp, in which a soldier was killed.

The IDF forwarded a statement released after the events, which said that “during the operation, a plane hit a terrorist team that dropped explosives on forces operating in the area.”

IDF footage and a nearby CCTV camera show no clear evidence of clashes with Palestinians in al-Shuhada at the time of the attack.

The four brothers – Alaa, Hazza, Ahmad and Rami Darweesh – were aged between 22 and 29. They were Palestinian emigrants who had returned from Jordan a few years earlier with their mother and five brothers.

They had Israeli permits, which allowed them to enter Israel to work in agriculture on a daily basis. These licenses are often difficult to obtain and are quickly withdrawn from anyone Israel deems a security threat – or linked to someone who is.

The three men killed along with his brothers were members of his family.

The licenses of two of the brothers, seen by the BBC, were issued in September 2023 and were valid for several months. The borders with Israel were closed to Palestinian workers after Hamas attacks in October.

Paramedic Khalid al-Ahmad said that after 20 years working in Jenin, he was used to scanning trauma sites for weapons or explosives as a basic security routine.

“I would tell you if there were weapons there,” he said. “Honestly, they were civilians. There was nothing related to the resistance: no bullets, no weapons. And there was absolutely no Israeli presence.”

Palestinian armed groups – usually quick to claim any member killed by Israeli forces – have remained silent about these seven men, with no statement describing them as “martyrs” for their cause.

At the funeral, the bodies were wrapped in the flags of Palestinian groups, including Hamas.

The bodies of those killed by Israel are often wrapped in flags of movements supported by friends or family, even when the deceased themselves are not supporters.

Relatives and neighbors said the men had no links to militant groups, as did the head of Jenin’s main hospital, Wissam Bakr, where the bodies were taken that morning.

“They were not armed, they were not fighters,” he said. “Normally it is clear to people if he is a fighter from one of the militant groups. These seven? No, no, that’s right, they were all civilians.”

It was at the hospital that the men’s mother, Ibtesam Asous, saw the bodies of her children.

“They’re all gone,” he said. “I expected one of them to have been martyred, but not all four. I was shocked when I saw that they had all been killed.”

We asked the Israeli army to explain why this group of men was targeted.

A spokesperson responded that soldiers had begun hunting “terrorists who had killed an Israeli citizen” and that the airstrike had targeted “a terrorist team that had dropped explosives on forces operating in the area, putting them in danger”.

Hours before the airstrike in al-Shuhada, a 19-year-old border police officer, Shai Germai, was killed when her vehicle hit an explosive device during clashes with Palestinian fighters in the Jenin countryside.

Subsequently, the army convoy retreated from Jenin through al-Shuhada, where the Darweesh brothers had gathered with their three relatives near an all-night cafe popular with farm workers and vegetable market shoppers, towards the sunrise.

Night-vision drone footage provided by the IDF shows small flashes followed by an explosion as vehicles pass along the road – a heat pattern that could be produced by a petrol bomb. The video has no date or time.

The military also provided similar footage of its airstrike on the site, but the two videos were cut and edited together, making it impossible to tell how much time passed between them.

We have asked the IDF to clarify the timing of both events. They responded that they would provide no further comment or information.

The sequence of events is important because of the circumstances necessary under international law to justify the use of lethal force.

The UN human rights body described the situation in the West Bank late last year as “alarming and urgent”.

“Israeli forces have increasingly used military tactics and weapons in law enforcement operations,” an agency spokesperson said in November.

“Law enforcement is governed by international human rights law, which prohibits the intentional use of lethal force except when strictly necessary to protect life.”

Ibtesam Asous, the boys’ mother, said she had observed a change in the methods used by Israeli forces in the West Bank after Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.

“They act just like they used to,” he said. “The only thing that has changed is that before the army would shoot someone in the leg. But now it’s something bigger: now they bomb with rockets and kill as many people as possible.”

According to United Nations data, last year was the bloodiest on record in the West Bank: 492 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, 300 of them after Hamas attacks in October, including 80 children.

Almost all were killed with lethal ammunition.

Twenty-eight Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed in the West Bank by Palestinians last year – including three after the October attacks, two of whom were soldiers.

Attacks have also been carried out by Palestinians inside Israel, including one earlier this week that killed a woman and injured 17 other people.

Two witnesses who were at the bar that morning told us that the army convoy left al-Shuhada between 04:00 and 04:45 local time, before the airstrike occurred, and that there were no clashes with the local population.

“The soldiers passed by four times and no one approached them,” one of them said. “When the [veículos] they were completely out of the village, they bombed. Some young people, sitting by the fire to warm themselves, were hit by a rocket.”

Another man told the BBC that around an hour passed between the army’s departure from the village and the air raid at around 5am, and that many people in the bar – including him – had left between the two events .

Khalid al-Ahmad, the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic, recalls the Israeli army’s withdrawal from Jenin camp in the early hours of the morning and says it was “almost five in the morning” when he was called to the village after the attack.

The director of Jenin Hospital confirmed that the bodies arrived there at around 5.15am.

Footage from a nearby camera, some of it taken on a cellphone by an unknown source, shows the 30 seconds immediately before the airstrike, during which a car drives along the same stretch of empty road, apparently without incident.

There is no date or time visible on the recording.

A group of people – the Darweesh brothers and their relatives – can be seen standing and sitting around a campfire. Then the air raid happens.

Some of the siblings would go to work, the mother said, while Hazza would go to her morning dialysis appointment at Jenin hospital.

He was worried that the military operation might block the road, he said, and wanted to leave soon.

The hospital’s nephrology unit confirmed that Hazza Darweesh had a regular dialysis appointment at 7am that day and showed us his name in the diary.

A video shot by the brothers’ uncle, Youssef Asous, shortly after the airstrike shows bodies strewn on the ground.

Jenin paramedic expert Khalid al-Ahmad said he desperately wanted to one day forget the scene.

“They were guys without weapons,” Youssef said. “If they had guns, I would have seen them. There were only the chairs they were sitting on.”

“In the end, every Palestinian is a target: if you are an armed person, you are a target; and if you are a civilian, then you are also a target.”

We presented all allegations in this report to the IDF spokesperson, who reiterated that the army had nothing further to add.

Ibtesam Asous visited the site of the attack for the first time this week: Her other children tried to stop her from coming, she said, but she had to see for herself.

“I wanted to come and imagine where each of them was sitting,” he explained, pointing to several spots on the ground as traffic roared by.

“Alaa was there; Ahmad, Rami and Hazza were here. I wanted to see exactly where my children were. That helps.”

Orsi Szoboszlay contributed to this article

Source: Terra

Rose

Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.