Israeli army admits to driving over militant’s body in West Bank

TEL AVIV   (  Web News )

Israel’s military said on Wednesday one of their vehicles “unintentionally” ran over the body of a Palestinian militant during a gun battle in the occupied West Bank earlier this week.

Palestinian officials accused Israel of committing a “brutal crime” after social media footage revealed a military vehicle running over a dead militant in the city of Tulkarem late on Monday.

The military said they had been helping police in a counter-terrorism operation that resulted in an exchange of fire and the deaths of three “terrorists.”

“The operational vehicle that is seen in the video was dispatched in order to extricate the force that was caught under heavy fire, and unintentionally ran over the terrorist’s body,” the Israeli military said in response to an AFP request for comment.

The military said it would review what had happened and added that the video “does not show the incident in its entirety”.

Violence in the West Bank has surged to levels unseen in nearly two decades since October 7, when attacks on Israel by Palestinian armed group Hamas sparked all-out war, still raging in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The footage of Monday’s incident, shared on social media, appears to be taken from a security camera and shows an armored vehicle slowly driving over what seems to be a lifeless body.

The vehicle then stops, restarts and drives off, crushing the body again with its back wheels.

Other footage taken from the same camera shows an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and militants.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, home to about three million Palestinians, since 1967. Some 490,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements deemed illegal under international law.

Israeli army raids and settler attacks have killed at least 334 people in the West Bank in the past three months, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry.