GENEVA (Reuters): The United Nations said on Friday that the killing of two Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank by Israeli security forces the previous day appeared to be a "summary execution."
In footage captured by Palestine TV, Israeli security forces opened fire at two men in the northern West Bank city of Jenin after they appeared to have surrendered.
The men were seen leaving the building and lifting their shirts before lying on the ground in apparent surrender. The forces then appeared to direct them back into the building before shooting them.
"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 press in Geneva.
The Israeli military and the country's police force said on Thursday that they had launched an investigation into the shooting, saying that forces had opened fire towards suspects who had exited a building.
Palestinian group Islamic Jihad on Friday claimed one of the men as one of its commanders and the other as a fighter.
Mahmoud Asasa, 43, whose 37-year-old brother Yousef was one of the two men shot 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 took place as Israeli forces were raiding Jenin, a day after launching a military operation in the nearby city of Tubas. Israeli forces have been carrying out a sustained assault on northern West Bank cities since January this year.
"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," said Shai Parnes of Israeli rights group B'tselem.
Israel's military and police said in their joint statement that the two men were wanted individuals.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has publicly backed the military and police unit involved in the shooting.
The UN's Laurence said Ben-Gvir's comments were "nothing short of abhorrent."
He said that 21 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli security forces so far in November, nine of them children.
The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited civic rule in the West Bank, has condemned the shooting as a "heinous extrajudicial killing" and a war crime.
