October 5, 2024
PCHR Condemns Killing of 18 Palestinians, Including Parents, Their Two Children, and another child, in an Israeli Airstrike on Residential Building in Tulkarem Refugee Camp
PCHR Condemns Killing of 18 Palestinians, Including Parents, Their Two Children, and another child, in an Israeli Airstrike on Residential Building in Tulkarem Refugee Camp

Alarmed by Surge in Extrajudicial Killings: PCHR Condemns Killing of 18 Palestinians, Including Parents, Their Two Children, and another child, in an Israeli Airstrike on Residential Building in Tulkarem Refugee Camp

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the extrajudicial killing (assassination) carried out by Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF), killing 18 Palestinians, including at least 10 civilians: parents and their two children, and another child. On Thursday evening, Israeli warplanes targeted a café beneath a residential building in a densely populated area of Tulkarem refugee camp, east of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank. This crime is part of IOF’s surging killings and destruction in the West Bank alongside its continued genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip, perpetuated by years of impunity for the Israeli war criminals.

Since the start of the Israeli genocidal campaign on Gaza on 07 October 2023, PCHR has documented at least 49 airstrikes conducted by various Israeli warplanes in the northern West Bank, killing 174 Palestinians, including 31 children and one woman, and the latest attack was on Tulkarem refugee camp. Since the beginning of 2024, IOF have killed 749 Palestinians, including 169 children and 14 women, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

According to information obtained by PCHR’s field researcher, at approximately 22:18 on Thursday, 03 October 2024, Israeli warplanes fired at least one missile at a café owned by Nimer Mohammed Fiat, rented beneath a three-story residential building owned by Al-Kharboush family in the Al-Hamam neighborhood of Tulkarem refugee camp, a densely populated area. The missile penetrated the building’s roof and upper residential floors before exploding in the café, causing massive destruction to the cafe and the whole building. The airstrike has claimed the lives of 18 Palestinians, including at least 10 civilians: a couple and their two children, and another child, while 20 others were injured. All the casualties were either in the café, in the building or in nearby buildings as the destruction extended to the building itself, igniting fires, and damaging nearby homes.

IOF claimed that the Shin Bet-guided Israeli Air Force fighter jets assaulted a local Hamas official, amounting to a crime of extrajudicial killing. These crimes are committed pursuant to IOF’s intelligence, and those wanted are killed instantly rather than being arrested. By this, IOF act as both judge and executioner of a death sentence. IOF use disproportionate force, in disregard for Palestinian civilians’ lives, no matter how many they are.  Thus, this explains the sheer scale of civilian casualties in this crime and other similar crimes.

PCHR condemns this crime of extrajudicial execution and indicates that IOF have perpetuated this pattern of crimes in the recent years against the Palestinians amid the international community’s silence and inaction, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to stop these crimes and take effective measures against the Israeli occupation, thereby encouraging the latter to commit further war crimes against the Palestinians.

PCHR warns against IOF’s unjustifiably escalating policy of targeted killings and excessive use of force in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Thus, it reiterates its call on the international community to take an immediate action to stop the Israeli crimes and double standard in the applicability of the international law, urging the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to take serious action in the situation of Palestine.

PCHR call on the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfil their obligations as per Common Article 1 of the Convention, “undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances,” and their obligations under Article 146 of the same Convention, i.e., to hold accountable persons accused of committing grave breaches of the Convention.