The footage of Israeli security forces apparently summarily executing two Palestinians is damning.
In the short clip, first broadcast on Egyptian TV, two Palestinian men, apparently unarmed, emerge from a partially destroyed building with their hands above their heads. Several officers order them to lie down.
The officers then open fire at close range and shoot them dead. This happened on Thursday afternoon during an Israeli military and border police raid on Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
The two men were named as Yusef âAsaâsah, 39, and al-Muntaser bel-lah âAbdallah, 26, by the Israeli rights group Bâtselem, who said the two were surrendering and apparently posed no threat.
The Israeli military, in a statement, claimed that the individuals were âwantedâ and were affiliated with a âterror networkâ whose name they did not disclose.
âFollowing their exit, fire was directed toward the suspects,â the military wrote, adding that the âincident is under review by the commanders on the groundâ.
Such a brazen killing caught on camera prompted Israeli public broadcaster Kan to report that even the Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir had ordered an âexpedited investigationâ into the incident.
Kan also reported that the soldiers had said they were following orders. So it seems this is not an isolated incident â nor likely to have been an operational âmistakeâ.
It is some of the starkest and clearest footage showing a surge in violence and rampant violations of international law committed by Israeli forces. This violence is something that respected Israeli, Palestinian and international rights groups have been documenting, and warning about, since the war in Gaza erupted in October 2023.
More than 1,000 people, including numerous foreign citizens, have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers in the past two years, according to the United Nations.
That death toll is so high that rights groups say the past two years have been the bloodiest period the area has witnessed since Israel first occupied the land in 1967, almost 60 years ago.
Israeli forces have also stormed and emptied four refugee camps â Jenin, Nur Shams, Tulkarm and Farâa â forcibly displacing more than 40,000 people in February.
This latest execution, along with the other violence and killings, is âthe result of an accelerated process of dehumanisation of Palestinians, and the complete abandonment of their lives by the Israeli regimeâ, said Bâtselemâs executive director, Yuli Novka.
âIn Israel, there is no mechanism that acts to stop the killing of Palestinians or is capable of prosecuting those responsible,â she added, urging the international community to intervene.
And this is another failing. Donald Trumpâs widely lauded âpeace dealâ for Gaza fails to even mention the occupied West Bank, despite the fact this extraordinary level of violence has happened alongside the slaughter in Gaza, where an unprecedented bombardment by Israel has, according to Palestinian health officials, resulted in nearly 70,000 dead.
Even in Gaza, since the October ratification of Trumpâs deal, which he heralded as the dawn of a new peace for the region, the Palestinian health authorities reported this week that over 340 Palestinians have been killed as Israel has continued to bomb and raid parts of the besieged enclave.
As the West Bank is not even mentioned in the deal, military level raids continue, and result, as this video shows, in extrajudicial killings.
But the violence is not limited to members of the security services.
The UK, France, Germany and Italy released a joint statement on Thursday sounding the alarm about a massive and deadly surge in settler violence against Palestinians, which eyewitnesses have repeatedly explained to me occurs under the watchful gaze of the security forces.
Israel seized the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 six-day war, an occupation which the International Court of Justice has deemed illegal and in defiance of the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood.
Since then, Israel has built and expanded its settlements to such an extent that the West Bank is now home to over 500,000 Israeli settlers.
Since Hamasâs deadly attacks on 7 October 2023 on southern Israel, many settlers have actually been armed by the state and recruited into what Israel has called regional defence units, which international, Israeli and Palestinian rights groups say have been getting bolder and more violent every day.
On Thursday, the UK and its allies said the number of attacks has reached ânew heightsâ, with 264 attacks in October, according to the UNâs humanitarian office, âthe largest number of settlersâ attacks in a single month since the United Nations began recording such incidents in 2006.â
âWe, ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, call on the Government of Israel to abide by its obligations under international law and protect the Palestinian population of the occupied territories,â they added.
The UK has also imposed sanctions on settler individuals.
BâTselem has told me about how the Israeli military not only supports violent settler behaviour, but the settlers themselves have access to state-supplied weapons, and are âactually part of the army nowâ.
âThey get total impunity,â he added at the time.
A stark example was July in Umm al-Khair, which is part of Masafer Yatta, in the south of the occupied West Bank, where the plight of Palestinian communities and the relentless attacks they face from settlers was featured in Oscar-winning film No Other Land.
There, Awdah Hathaleen, 31, a Palestinian activist who worked on the documentary, actually appeared to film his own murder by a UK-sanctioned settler Yinon Levi.
Despite the video footage and despite multiple Palestinian and international witnesses, Levi was only briefly held under house arrest before being freed. He has since been filmed continuing to harass the families in Umm al-Khair.
There can be no miracle âpeaceâ in Palestine, Israel or the region if these wanton acts of violence are not only able to continue with impunity but normalised.
In order for there to be an actual ceasefire peace deal, the occupied West Bank must also be included in any text.
There must be accountability for violations of international law – to allow for peace and security that is fair for all.
