Israel’s military raids targeting the Jenin refugee camp “may prima facie constitute a war crime”, a group of UN experts said.
“Israeli forces’ operations in the occupied West Bank, killing and seriously injuring the occupied population, destroying their homes and infrastructure, and arbitrarily displacing thousands, amount to egregious violations of international law and standards on the use of force and may constitute a war crime,” the experts said in a statement.
The statement condemned Israeli forces’ so-called “counterterrorism” actions as they had “no legal justification under international law”, and expressed “grave concern” about military weaponry and tactics deployed by Israel’s occupation forces at least twice over the last two weeks against Jenin’s population.
“[Palestinians] cannot be treated as a collective security threat by the occupying Power, all the more while it advances the annexation of occupied Palestinian land, and displacement and dispossession of its Palestinian residents,” the statement said.