Palestinian authority says Israeli gunfire kills two in West Bank
Qusai Nasser Mahmud Nassar, 23, and Wissam Ghassan Hassan Shtayyeh, 37, 'were shot and killed by the (Israeli) occupation forces on Sunday afternoon in the village of Salem, east of Nablus,' the ministry said in a statement.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.
Violence in the West Bank has surged since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, triggered by the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian movement Hamas.
Since then, Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank have killed at least 949 Palestinians -- many of them militants, but also scores of civilians -- according to Palestinian health ministry figures.
At least 35 Israelis, including both civilians and security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
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Arab News
an hour ago
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How Western governments avoid confronting Israel
Flying in the teeth of mass public opinion, governments allergic to getting tough with Israel have deployed a host of tactics to put off implementing any measures that might hold it to account. In doing so, they have been prepared to smash much-cherished ethical principles and norms, as well as international law. Keeping the US administration happy is a cornerstone of the approach of many leaders, no matter how many atrocities or crimes against humanity Israel perpetrates. This has contaminated the entire international system. The most egregious failing is not just to ignore the crimes, but to be complicit with Israel's genocide in Gaza and its regime of apartheid. But the complicity brings additional side effects — notably the trivialization of values most of us hold dear. Above all, this has meant hollowing out the international legal system. The international Court of Justice and International Criminal Court are only respected when ruling against the foes of Western powers. When the latter issued an arrest warrant for Israeli leaders, the US sanctioned the court's key actors. The UK has been an alarming exemplar of this. The actions of the government have trivialized terrorism, racism and antisemitism, while belittling genocide, war crimes and rape. Last week, the British government decided to proscribe as terrorist a pro-Palestine protest group that engages in direct action. It is now a criminal offence to join or to express support for Palestine Action, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. This move came as part of a bill that lumped it together with two genuinely violent neo-Nazi organizations, helping to ensure the legislation passed through Parliament. This came after four members of Palestine Action, protesting against Israel's genocide, broke into a British military base and spray painted aircraft red. Vandalism, yes; criminal, certainly; but hardly terrorism. The farcical nature of the legislation was exposed when police arrested 27 protesters on the day it came into effect. One of them was an 83-year-old female priest. Terrorism should always be treated as a serious offence. Yet those who spray paint buildings and aircraft are now in the same category as those who blow themselves up at pop concerts, for example. Police resources risk being diverted away from genuinely violent groups. This will, by design, have massive implications for the right to protest and the right to free speech. The chilling effect on the movement for Palestinian rights will be Arctic. It echoes the way in which ministers in the previous government described pro-Palestinian protests as 'hate marches.' Racism and antisemitism have also been trivialized and for similar reasons. The weaponization of antisemitism by anti-Palestinian groups has often been echoed in government statements. 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As for anti-Arab racism, this remains the least discussed and researched form of racism imaginable. This is quite something when the people of Gaza are the victims of genocide and all Palestinians under Israeli control suffer from varying degrees of institutionalized discrimination as part of its regime of apartheid. All this threatens freedom of speech. Add to that the way in which many states or cities have banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations or even the flying of the Palestinian flag. Israel has destroyed every single university in Gaza, but in the US the issue has been reduced to alleged antisemitism on college campuses. It is a deliberate exercise in distraction and diversion. Get the debate on to antisemitism or the nature of protests and the media focus switches away from the real crimes on the ground — every single day, the Israeli military's killing and starvation machine is at work in Gaza. The distraction allows governments to avoid having to answer why they are doing so little to stop Israel. The combination of trivialization and distraction is part of the complicity of these governments. They treat the public as fools, but people are not blind to their leaders' abject moral failure on Palestine.
Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Doctors alarmed at rising meningitis cases in Gaza's children
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Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Israeli soldier describes alleged arbitrary killings of civilians in Gaza
LONDON: An Israeli army reservist has claimed that civilians in Gaza were frequently shot without warning or threat during his service, describing what he called shifting and often arbitrary rules of engagement that, at times, led to the killing of unarmed people. In a rare on-camera interview with Sky News, the soldier, who served three tours of duty in Gaza with the Israeli military, said troops were often instructed to shoot anyone entering areas considered to be off limits, regardless of whether they posed a threat or not. 'We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die,' he told Sky News. 'If they're inside, they're dangerous, you need to kill them. No matter who it is.' 'Some Israeli commanders can decide to do war crimes.' An IDF soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said his conscience won't let him stay silent about arbitrary killing of civilians in — Sky News (@SkyNews) July 7, 2025 Speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, the reservist from the Israeli military's 252nd Division said he was twice stationed at the Netzarim corridor, a narrow military-controlled strip carved through central Gaza early in the war to divide the territory and tighten Israeli control. He described how his unit marked invisible boundaries near civilian areas, sometimes while occupying homes belonging to displaced Palestinians. Local residents, he said, were expected to understand these lines without explanation or risk being shot. 'There's an imaginary line that they tell us all the Gazan people know. But how can they know?' he said. 'It might be like a teenager riding his bicycle.' The soldier said the decision to open fire on civilians frequently depended on the 'mood of the commander,' with criteria for engagement varying from day to day, adding: 'They might be shot, they might be captured, it really depends on the day.' He recalled one incident in which a man was shot for crossing the boundary, followed by another who was detained for approaching the body, only for the rules to change again hours later, with orders to shoot anyone crossing the line. The soldier alleged that commanders were able to set their own rules of engagement, sometimes with deadly consequences. 'Every commander can choose for himself what he does. So it's kind of like the Wild West,' he said. 'Some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don't face the consequences of that.' He also described a pervasive culture among troops that viewed all Gazans as legitimate targets in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel and led to more than 250 taken hostage. 'They'd say: 'Yeah, but these people didn't do anything to prevent October 7, and they probably had fun when this was happening to us. So they deserve to die',' he said. 'People don't feel mercy for them. I think the core of it, that in their mind, these people aren't innocent,' he added. In Israel, where military service is a social rite of passage and the military is widely seen as a unifying national institution, public criticism of the armed forces is rare. The soldier told Sky News he feared being branded a traitor but felt compelled to speak out. 'I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out,' he said. 'I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country.' He added: 'I think a lot of people, if they knew exactly what's happening, it wouldn't go down very well for them, and they wouldn't agree with it.' When asked about the allegations, the Israeli military told Sky News that it 'operates in strict accordance with its rules of engagement and international law, taking feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.' According to the statement: 'The IDF operates against military targets and objectives, and does not target civilians or civilian objects.' The military said complaints or reports of alleged violations are 'transferred to the relevant authorities responsible for examining exceptional incidents that occurred during the war.' It also highlighted steps it says it takes to minimise civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation notices and regular updates about combat zones.
