Israeli forces shove at least four men off West Bank roof, videos show

At least three Israel Defense Forces soldiers dropped, pushed and shoved four men over the side of a two-story building Thursday in the town of Qabatiya near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, a Washington Post analysis of nearly a dozen videos and photos showed.

It was not clear if the men were still alive at the time, though their bodies were motionless. At least two were bound and one was kicked off the roof of the building. The incident came after an Israeli raid targeting militants in the area that included at least one exchange of fire near the building, which sits just behind two school buildings.

The IDF, asked to comment on the footage, said in a statement: “This is a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers. The incident is under review.”

The IDF declined to comment further when asked about the military’s protocol regarding the movement of someone injured or killed by Israeli fire, why the soldiers shoved the people off the building or whether they checked for vital signs before shoving the people from the roof.

The IDF had said in a statement Thursday that its troops fatally shot four “terrorists” in Qabatiya that day as part of a “large-scale operation.” It did not respond to a request for comment on whether the four people killed were the men who were shoved off the roof.

Sometime before 12:19 p.m. local time Thursday, a man dressed in black, carrying a weapon moved quickly across the building’s roof, video published to X shows. The person filming from a nearby window urges him, “Run away! Run away, run away!” Bursts of gunfire are audible and the man falls to the ground. “They hit him with a rocket,” the narrator says. By that time, at least one other man lays motionless on the rooftop, his arms awkwardly tucked under his torso.

Two additional bodies lie in a pool of blood on the rooftop. Soldiers roll one man over, revealing his hand and stomach covered in blood. Another fires his rifle into the other body. The group then rolls the bodies, kicking and pulling them, until they are closer to the roof’s edge.

It is not clear how much time elapses before a group of Israeli soldiers throws three bodies off the same rooftop. The clothing and general description of the bodies matches those previously moved by the soldiers.

Over the course of a minute and a half video, the soldiers lift a man wearing a white T-shirt upside down and hold him over the building’s edge. The man’s feet and hands appear to be tied as he falls straight down without moving and a cord follows him. Then, the soldiers pick up a second person by their arms, swinging them backward and forward before dropping the flailing body over the edge. Together they roll a third body toward the edge and one soldier kicks the body off the roof.

Video filmed later in the evening shows Israeli security forces lifting a fourth man with a ropelike object tethered to his ankle over the edge of the same building. The soldiers watch the body fall.

“The conduct shown in the videos is manifestly unlawful,” Adil Haque, an expert on international law at Rutgers University, said. “Killing any person incapacitated by wounds, or mistreating their dead body, violates international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime in the context of a military occupation,” he added.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at Crisis Group who previously served at the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, agreed, noting, “outrages against personal dignity – including against the deceased – can amount to a war crime,” in an occupied territory.

According to the IDF’s mission statement, Israeli soldiers must “maintain their humanity during combat and routine times. The soldier will not use their weapon or power to harm uninvolved civilians and prisoners and will do everything in their power to prevent harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and property.”

“Of course it’s against the ethical code of the IDF,” said Nadav Weiman, a former Israeli army sniper who leads Breaking the Silence, an anti-occupation veterans’ group that gathers testimony from soldiers assigned to the West Bank and Gaza. “But that was thrown out the window years ago.”

Weiman noted that in Gaza, the IDF has been accused of mistreating Palestinian bodies in a number of incidents. The discovery of mass graves in the Gaza Strip in April sparked global outrage, including condemnation from the United Nations.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday that officials had seen the video of Thursday’s episode. “We found it deeply disturbing,” he said.

Kirby added that should the video be “proven to be authentic, it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behavior by professional soldiers.” He said the United States pressed Israeli officials for more details and were promised a thorough investigation into the matter.

The conduct of Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank has previously been criticized by the international community, including by the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this month called for the IDF to change its rules of engagement in the West Bank after an American woman was fatally shot by an IDF soldier. The IDF said it was “very likely” she was hit “unintentionally.” President Joe Biden called the killing “totally unacceptable.”

- – -

Jonathan Baran, Joe Snell and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.