The United Nations has condemned the killing of two Palestinian men by Israeli security forces in Jenin, describing the incident as an apparent “summary execution.”
Footage broadcast by Palestine TV shows the men leaving a building, lifting their shirts, and lying on the ground in what appeared to be surrender. Israeli forces then directed them back inside before opening fire.
“We’re appalled by the brazen killing by Israeli border police yesterday of two Palestinian men in Jenin in the occupied West Bank in yet another apparent summary execution,” UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva.
Israeli military and police officials said they had launched an investigation, claiming the men were suspects affiliated with a “terror network.” The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad later identified one of the victims as a commander and the other as a fighter.
Family members expressed outrage. Mahmoud Asasa, whose brother Yousef was among the dead, said: “The act was so hideous. A person who raises his hands and surrenders can be arrested, but eliminating him in such a brutal way is very wrong.”
The shooting occurred during a raid in Jenin, one day after Israeli forces carried out a military operation in Tubas. Since January, Israel has intensified operations across northern West Bank cities.
Israeli rights group B’tselem condemned the incident, saying: “Everyone saw that they were posing no threat to the Israeli forces, yet the soldiers decided to shoot them and kill them on the spot. It was an execution in front of the cameras.”
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir publicly defended the unit involved, writing on X: “The fighters acted exactly as expected of them – terrorists should die!” Laurence called the remarks “nothing short of abhorrent.”
According to the UN, Israeli forces have killed 21 Palestinians in November alone, including nine children. The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry denounced the Jenin killings as a “heinous extrajudicial killing” and a war crime.
