Ref: 30/2015
Date: 10 June 2015
Time: 12:00 GMT

On Wednesday dawn, 10 June 2015, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian civilian in Jenin refugee camp, west of Jenin town in the north of the West Bank. Israeli forces claimed that Israeli soldiers moved into the camp to arrest wanted persons. When they were on their way out of the camp, they noticed a young Palestinian man trying to throw a bomb at them. Therefore, one of the Israeli soldiers opened fire at him, so the bomb exploded beside him before he could throw it.

The investigations of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) cast doubts on that claims especially as the victim was hit with one bullet and the doctors said that they examined his body and found no shrapnel of an explosive device or something like that.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR and eyewitnesses’ accounts, in the early mroning, an Israeli force sneaked into Jenin refugee camp and stayed in an area separating between the square in the center of the camp and al-Samran neighborhood in the north of the camp, where the victim’s house is located. At approximately 03:00, a sound of one bullet was heard in the area hitting ‘Ezz al-Deen Walid Hasan Bani Ghorah (23) and killed him immediately. Meanwhile, a Palestinian civilian Subaru car was passing by the area, so the driver took the body of Bani Ghorah to Martyr Dr. Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin. Medical sources in the aforementioned hospital reported that Bani Ghorah was hit with a bullet that penetrated his left arm and settled in his chest killing him immediately.

PCHR strongly condemns this crime which is part of Israel’s policy of using excessive force against Palestinian civilians in disregard for their lives. Furthermore, PCHR calls upon the international community to take immediate and effective actions to stop the israeli crimes and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligation under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions.