GENEVA: Israel’s large-scale military operation Wednesday in the occupied West Bank “risks seriously deepening the already catastrophic situation” in the Palestinian territory, the United Nations said.
The Israeli military launched a series of coordinated raids across four cities — Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem — with the army saying it killed nine Palestinian fighters.
Israel’s operations in the cities “and the killing of at least nine Palestinians, two of them reportedly children, take the overall death toll in the West Bank since October 7 to 637,” UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement.
“This represents the highest number of fatalities over a period of eight months since the UN first started recording casualties in the West Bank two decades ago.”
Violence has surged in the West Bank during the Gaza war sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.
“Many children have been killed while throwing stones at highly protected Israeli security forces, as have other Palestinians posing no imminent threat to life or serious injury,” Shamdasani said.
“Such unnecessary or disproportionate use of force and the increase in apparent targeted and other summary killings are alarming.”
She said thousands of Palestinians had been arbitrarily arrested and tortured, subjected to unrelenting settler violence, severe restrictions on movement and expression, their homes and property destroyed or seized, and forcibly displaced.
“Israel, as the occupying power, must abide by its obligations under international law,” she said.
“The Israeli security forces’ use of airstrikes and other military weapons and tactics violates human rights norms and standards applicable to law enforcement operations.”
Shamdasani said alleged unlawful killings needed to be thoroughly and independently investigated, and those responsible held to account.