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Israeli soldiers seen pushing bodies off rooftops during raid in occupied West Bank
Qabatiya, West Bank — Israeli soldiers pushed three apparently lifeless bodies from rooftops during a raid in the northern part of the occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene and video obtained by AP.
An AP journalist in the town of Qabatiya witnessed three soldiers push the bodies off the roofs of adjacent multi-story buildings, sending them falling out of view. It was the latest in a series of suspected violations by Israeli forces since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that rights groups say show a pattern of excessive force toward Palestinians.
“This is a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers,” the military said in a statement, using the acronym it goes by. “The incident is under review.”
Majdi Mohammed/AP
Israel said its troops had killed four militants during operations in Qabatiya on Thursday.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah did not immediately confirm multiple deaths, but said one person had been killed in the town and that Israeli gunfire sent 10 Palestinians to the hospital.
In the video obtained by AP, three soldiers can be seen picking up what appears to be a stiff body and then dragging it toward the edge of a roof as troops stand on the ground below. The soldiers on the roof peer over the edge before heaving the body off.
On an adjacent rooftop, the soldiers hold another apparently lifeless body by its limbs and swing it over the edge. In a third instance, a soldier kicks a body toward the edge before it falls from view. Photos captured by AP during Thursday’s raid show an Israeli army bulldozer moving near the buildings where the bodies were dropped.
Other journalists at the scene also witnessed the bodies being pushed off the roofs.
The identities of the dead and the cause of their deaths were not immediately known.
When withdrawing from raids, the army usually leaves behind any Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire. Occasionally the army brings dead bodies into Israel.
Getty/iStockphoto
Under international law, soldiers are supposed to ensure dead bodies, including those of enemy combatants, are treated decently.
“There is no military need to do this. It’s just a savage way of treating Palestinian bodies,” said Shawan Jabarin, the director of Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, after watching the video.
Jabarin said the video was shocking but not surprising, and he was doubtful Israel would properly investigate the incident. The Israeli military rarely prosecutes soldiers in cases of reported harm to Palestinians, rights groups say.
“The most that will happen is that soldiers will be disciplined, but there will be no real investigation and no real prosecution,” said Jabarin.
Israeli forces have been accused of abuse of force in the West Bank and Gaza since the war in the smaller Palestinian territory was sparked by its Hamas rulers’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack. That includes accusations of opening fire on civilians in Gaza waiting to receive food aid, and the alleged mistreatment of young Palestinian prisoners.
Human rights organizations have accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes in Gaza since the war began, and the United Nations’ highest court, the International Court of Justice, is currently investigating allegations brought by South Africa that Israel is committing the crime of genocide with its actions in Gaza. Israel has condemned the accusation as a “false and baseless” defense of Hamas and it requested in January that the ICJ dismiss the case, but the investigation continues.
The AP reporter who witnessed the raid saw a blindfolded and shirtless Palestinian man kneeling before an Israeli army jeep and armed soldiers. Smoke billowed from several buildings that appeared damaged.
As the world’s attention focuses on the far more deadly war in Gaza less than 80 miles away, scores of Palestinians have been killed, shot and arrested in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has waged a monthslong crackdown.
More than 700 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since the war erupted on Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The northern West Bank has seen some of the worst violence since the war’s outbreak.
Israel says the raids are necessary to stamp out militancy, which has flared since Oct. 7. In that time, Palestinian gunmen have attacked Israelis at checkpoints and staged several attacks within Israel.
Earlier this month, Israel staged its deadliest raid into the northern West Bank since the war began, killing at least 33 people.
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Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a bid to put Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on the Nevada general election ballot, leaving in place a lower court decision that excluded the party from the vote.
The dispute is one of the first involving the upcoming election to land before the Supreme Court, though more are likely to follow. The high court in August revived part of an Arizona law requiring documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote using a state-created form, but declined to allow enforcement of provisions mandating such proof in order to vote for president or by mail.
Both Nevada and Arizona are key battleground states that could decide the outcome of the presidential contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Stein is the Green Party’s nominee for president. Ballots in Nevada had to be finalized by Sept. 6.
The Supreme Court denied a request from the Nevada Green Party to toss out a lower court injunction that blocked its candidates from appearing on the general election ballot. There were no noted dissents.
The Nevada case
The dispute involving the Nevada Green Party was brought by the Nevada State Democratic Party, which sued in June to challenge the Green Party’s access to the ballot. Nevada Democrats claimed the Green Party, a minor political party in the state, used the wrong form to gather signatures to get on the ballot, rendering them invalid. The Green Party had been inadvertently emailed the incorrect form by the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office after its original petition contained a technical error.
Joel Angel Juarez for The Washington Post via Getty Images
The state Democratic Party was correct that the wrong affidavit was circulated, but the Green Party argued that keeping its candidates off the ballot would violate the Constitution. The Green Party prevailed before a state district court, but the Nevada Supreme Court found its rights were not violated.
The state high court then ordered the secretary of state to remove the Nevada Green Party candidates from the general election ballot.
“If the Green Party had reviewed the petition before using it, it would have discovered the incorrect circulator affidavit as the Green Party was clearly aware of the legal requirements for the affidavit considering it had used the correct affidavit in its original petition,” the Nevada Supreme Court said in its divided decision earlier this month. “This is an unfortunate oversight on the part of both the secretary and the Green Party.”
In a request for emergency relief from the Supreme Court, lawyers for the Nevada Green Party called the state court’s order preventing access to the ballot “extraordinary,” and a violation of due process and equal protection. They urged the Supreme Court to toss out the lower court ruling excluding the Green Party from the Nov. 5 ballot.
Green Party candidates “are wrongfully ripped from the ballot and Nevadans who would vote for them in this election are robbed of the opportunity to do so,” they argued. One of the lawyers involved in the case is Jay Sekulow, who has represented Trump in other matters in the past.
The Green Party claimed that thousands of Nevada voters who signed petitions for it to be listed on the ballot are now disenfranchised by the state supreme court’s decision.
“Exclusion from a ballot is tantamount to an electoral death penalty for candidates,” its lawyers claimed.
But Nevada Democrats argued that the relief the Green Party is seeking is “extraordinary” and “seemingly unprecedented,” and accused the party of attempting to be excused from failing to comply with the state’s ballot access laws.
Lawyers for the Democrats noted that ballots are already being printed and are set to be sent out within days, and disturbing the Nevada Supreme Court’s ruling would disrupt the printing process, they said. Ballots for military and overseas voters must be mailed out by Sept. 20, while out-of-state absentee ballots have to be sent out by Sept. 26. Nevada officials said in a separate filing that at least one county clerk has already sent out military and overseas ballots, as well as ballots to out-of-state voters, to ensure compliance with federal and state laws.
The state Democratic Party urged the justices to reject the Green Party’s “effort to inject chaos and uncertainty into Nevada’s election process during the ballot-printing process just days before ballots are sent to voters.”
Nevada’s secretary of state echoed warnings that ordering Stein to be placed back on the ballot would undermine the integrity of the state’s election, as the Green Party could try to force the state to send some voters new ballots.
“Here, the harm is far greater than just the loss of time preparing and printing ballots,” lawyers for the state told the Supreme Court in a filing. “Ballots have already been mailed to some voters, and if the Court grants the Application, it would lead to voter confusion and an erosion of confidence in the electoral process.”
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