Palestinians have shared footage on social media, which showed Israeli troops pushing lifeless bodies from the roof of a house, shortly after an Israeli military invasion in a town near Jenin. During the raid in Qabatiya, Israeli occupation forces, bombed a vehicle near a commercial complex in the town, setting it ablaze and killing two people, as well as besieged and opened fire near Izzat Abu al-Rab School and Qabatiya School, leaving over 1,200 students and staff barricaded inside.
The videos immortalise three Israeli soldiers climbing onto the roof, holding the bodies, and throwing them one by one from the top. In one clip, a soldier is seen kicking one of the bodies until it falls over the edge.
The harrowing scenes from Qabatiya where Israeli forces were seen throwing at least four bodies off a rooftop, represent more than just potential war crimes under International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law.
Under international law, armed forces are required to treat enemy bodies with respect, prevent them from mutilation and return them to their families. Israel has frequently held the bodies of dead Palestinians as bargaining chips in future negotiations.
Calls for an investigation by the Israeli military aren’t enough. It is a systematic pattern for these kind of crimes to be let off the hooks by Israeli internal investigations. The Palestinian Return Centre condemns in the strongest terms this latest brutal attack and reiterates its call for the international community to cuts ties with the Israeli genocidal state until it respects Palestinian rights and self-determination.