The 4 brothers who died in the attack.
- Author, lucy williamson
- Role, BBC News correspondent, Al-Shuhada, West Bank
Israel was accused of attacking a group of Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank who, according to witnesses, had no ties to armed groups or posed any threat.
seven men, four of them brothersThey died after being hit by an Israeli airstrike on the morning of 7 January while they were gathering near a bonfire next to the road passing through the village of Al Shuhada, 10 kilometers from the city of Jenin.
The BBC spoke to relatives of those killed, witnesses who were in the area at the time and a paramedic at the scene.
All provided evidence that the men were not members of armed terrorist groups and that there were no clashes with Israeli forces at that time and place.
Of the 7 victims, 4 were brothers aged between 22 and 29 years.
no evidence of collision
Khalid Al Ahmed, the first paramedic to arrive on the morning of the incident, is convinced the men were doing nothing wrong.
“One of them was wearing slippers and pyjama,” he told the BBC. “Don’t you think that anyone who wants to protest (the Israeli occupation) should at least wear appropriate shoes?”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) linked the attack to A military operation in the Jenin refugee camp a few hours agoIn which an Israeli soldier died.
The IDF referred us to a statement released at the time that said “during the operation, an aircraft attacked a terrorist squad that was throwing explosives at forces operating in the area.”
IDF footage and nearby surveillance cameras show no apparent evidence of clashes with Palestinians in al-Shuhada at the time of the attack.
The four brothers, Alaa, Hazza, Ahmed and Rami Darwish, were aged between 22 and 29 and were Palestinian immigrants who had returned from Jordan with their mother a few years earlier.
All four brothers died in the attack.
they were Permit that authorizes them to enter Israel Doing agricultural work every day. These permits are often difficult to obtain and are quickly withdrawn from those whom Israel considers a security threat or anyone associated with one.
The other three people killed along with him were his relatives.
“They were not armed”
The two brothers’ permits, verified by the BBC, were issued in September 2023 and were valid for several months. The borders with Israel have been closed to Palestinian workers since Hamas attacks in October.
Paramedic Khaled al Ahmed said that after working in Jenin for 20 years he has become accustomed to searching places where these types of attacks occur, looking for weapons or explosives as a basic security routine.
“If I had seen weapons there I would have told you,” he said. “To be honest, they were civilians. There was nothing related to the resistance: no bullets, no weapons, And there was no Israeli presence there.”
Palestinian armed groups – which are usually quick to claim responsibility for any of their members killed by Israeli forces – have remained silent about these seven men, with no statement linking any of them to their motive. For not being described as a “martyr”.
At the funeral, their bodies were wrapped in flags of Palestinian groups, including Hamas. The bodies of people killed in Israeli attacks are often wrapped in flags of movements supported by friends or family, even if the deceased were not supporters of those groups.
All relatives and neighbors told us that the men had no ties to terrorist groups, said Wissam Bakr, director of Jenin’s main hospital, where the bodies were taken that morning.
“They are not armed, they are not combatants,” he said. “usually, It’s clear whether someone is a fighter or not Of one of the extremist groups. These seven? “No, no, it is certain that they are all citizens.”
It was in the hospital itself that the victims’ mother, Ibtesam Asous, saw their bodies.
“They were all dead,” he said. “I expected one of them to be martyred, but not all four. I was shocked when I saw that all of them were killed.”
Ibtesam Assous is the mother of four brothers killed in the attack.
Israel’s version
We asked the Israeli military to explain why this group of people was attacked.
A spokesman responded that troops had begun pursuing “terrorists who murdered an Israeli civilian” and that the aim of the airstrike was “a terrorist squad that threw explosives against forces operating in the area, putting them in danger.
Hours before the airstrike on Al Shuhada, Shai Germai, a 19-year-old Israeli border police officer, He died after being hit by an explosive device during clashes with Palestinian fighters in the Jenin countryside.
The army convoy then moved back from Jenin via Al Shuhada, where the Darwish brothers gathered with three of their distant relatives near an all-night cafeteria for farm workers and customers in a nearby market.
Night vision images provided by IDF drones show small flashes after the explosion As vehicles pass on the road, a heating pattern that may correspond to a gasoline pump occurs. The video is not date or time stamped.
The military also provided similar footage of its airstrike at the scene, but those two videos are cut and edited together, making it impossible to know how much time passed between them.
We asked the IDF to clarify the timing of both events, but they responded that they would not provide any further comment or information.
Knowing the time is important to know whether necessary circumstances arose which, according to international law, would justify the use of lethal force.
The bodies were buried near Al Shuhada.
“Serious condition
The UN human rights body described the situation in the West Bank late last year as “concerning and urgent”.
“Israeli forces have used Greater military tactics and weapons in a police operation,” its spokesperson said in a statement in November.
They alleged that “the application of the law is governed by international human rights law, which prohibits the deliberate use of lethal force except when strictly necessary to protect life.”
Ibtesam Assous, the man’s mother, said she had noticed a change in the methods used by Israeli forces in the West Bank since Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7.
“They are working the same as before,” he said. “The only thing that has changed is that before the army used to shoot a person in the leg. But now it has become bigger: now they are bombing with rockets and killing as many people as they can. “
According to UN data, last year was the bloodiest year ever recorded in the West Bank: 492 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, 300 of them since Hamas attacks in October, including 80 children,
Almost all of them were hit by live ammunition.
Twenty-eight Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed by Palestinians in the West Bank last year, three of whom were killed since the October attacks, two of whom were soldiers.
Palestinians have also carried out attacks inside Israel, including an attack earlier this week One woman died and 17 others were injured,
more evidence
The mother of the four brothers returned to the scene of the incident.
Two witnesses present in the cafeteria that morning told us that the military convoy had left Al Shuhada between 04:00 and 04:45 local time (02:00–02:45 GMT), before the airstrike. And they had no clashes with the local population.
“Soldier they passed four times And no one came to them,” one of them said.
He described, “When the vehicles were completely outside the village, they were bombed. Young people, who were sitting near a fire to keep themselves warm, were attacked with rockets.”
Another man told the BBC that about an hour passed between the army leaving the village and the airstrike at about 05:00 and that many people in the café, including him, had left the scene between the two incidents.
Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic Khaled al Ahmed remembers Israeli forces withdrawing from the Jenin countryside in the early hours of the morning and said that “it was about five in the morning” when he was later called to the village. attack.
The director of Jenin hospital confirmed that the bodies had arrived there at about 05:15.
Footage from a nearby camera, some of which was filmed on a mobile phone by an unidentified source, shows 30 seconds before the airstrike a car passing through the same stretch of empty road, apparently without incident. There is no time stamp visible on the recording.
A group of people, the Darwish brothers and their relatives, can be seen standing and sitting around the bonfire. Then the air strike happens.
Some of the siblings were heading to work, his mother said, while Hazza was heading to an early-morning dialysis appointment at Jenin hospital.
He alleged that he was worried that the road would be blocked by the military operation and wanted to leave quickly.
The renal unit of the hospital confirmed that Hazza Darwish had a regular dialysis appointment at 7am that day and showed us his name in the diary.
A video taken by the brothers’ uncle, Youssef Assous, shortly after the airstrike shows bodies scattered on the ground.
“They were unarmed boys,” Yusuf insisted. “If they had weapons I would have seen them. there were only the chairs they sat on,
“In the end, any Palestinian is a target; if you are an armed person, you are a target; and if you are a civilian, you are also a target.”
We presented all of the allegations contained in this report to the IDF spokesperson, who reiterated that the army has nothing further to add.
Ibtessam Assous visited the site of the attack for the first time this week; His other children had tried to stop him, he said, but he had to see it with his own eyes.
“I wanted to come and Imagine where each of them was sitting” he explained, pointing to various spots on the ground as traffic passed.
“Ala was there; Ahmed, Rami and Hazza were here. I wanted to see where my kids were. This helps.”
Orsi Szoboszle contributed to this article
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