UN warns IDF’s West Bank op risks making ‘catastrophic situation’ worse

GENEVA, Switzerland — Israel’s large-scale counterterrorism operation in the West Bank “risks seriously deepening the already catastrophic situation” in the territory, the United Nations says.

The Israeli military launched a series of coordinated raids across four cities — Jenin, Nablus, Tubas, and Tulkarem — with the army saying it killed nine Palestinian terrorists.

Israel’s operations in the cities “and the killing of at least nine Palestinians, two of them reportedly children, take the overall death toll in the West Bank since October 7 to 637,” UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani says in a statement.

During the same period, 27 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.

“This represents the highest number of fatalities over a period of eight months since the UN first started recording casualties in the West Bank two decades ago.”

Violence has surged in the West Bank during the Israel-Hamas war sparked by the Hamas terror group’s October 7 massacre in Israel.

“Many children have been killed while throwing stones at highly protected Israeli security forces, as have other Palestinians posing no imminent threat to life or serious injury,” Shamdasani says.

“Such unnecessary or disproportionate use of force and the increase in apparent targeted and other summary killings are alarming.”

She says thousands of Palestinians had been arbitrarily arrested and tortured, subjected to unrelenting settler violence, severe restrictions on movement and expression, their homes and property destroyed or seized, and forcibly displaced.

“Israel, as the occupying power, must abide by its obligations under international law,” she says.

“The Israeli security forces’ use of airstrikes and other military weapons and tactics violates human rights norms and standards applicable to law enforcement operations.”

Shamdasani says alleged unlawful killings needed to be thoroughly and independently investigated, and those responsible held to account.