UN chief: Israel used excessive force in Jenin

(Times of Israel) UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said Israel used excessive force in the counter-terror operation in Jenin earlier in the week and blamed Israel for the violence in the West Bank city.

During a press briefing at UN Headquarters in New York City, Guterres said he had been “deeply disturbed” by news of the Jenin operation and “strongly condemns all acts of violence against civilians.”

Asked if his condemnation applied to both sides of the conflict, Guterres said, “It applies to all use of excessive force and obviously in this situation there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces.”

“Israeli airstrikes and ground operations in a crowded refugee camp were the worst violence in the West Bank in many years, with a significant impact on civilians,” Guterres said, blaming Israel for disruptions to water and electricity services, and blocking people from accessing medical care, a charge that Israel denied.

“I once again call on Israel to abide by its obligations under international law, including the duty to exercise restraint and use only proportional force,” Guterres said.

“I understand Israel’s legitimate concerns with its security but escalation is not the answer,” he added. “It simply bolsters radicalisation and leads to a deepening cycle of violence and bloodshed.”

The two-day Israeli operation came in response to a series of deadly terror attacks, many emanating from Jenin and its environs, an area Israeli security forces see as a hotbed of terrorism. The IDF said all of the operation’s 12 Palestinian fatalities were combatants, and most have been claimed by terror groups. One Israeli soldier was killed.

The UN special rapporteur for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, on Wednesday accused Israel of committing possible war crimes during the operation. She has a history of antisemitism and incendiary rhetoric against the Jewish state, and places sole blame for the conflict on Israel.

Albanese’s Thursday statement, issued with two other UN rapporteurs, said there was no legal justification for the Jenin operation. The statement made no mention of Palestinian terrorism, that the fatalities were combatants, or that the IDF recovered large amounts of weaponry in civilian buildings in Jenin.

Asked about Albanese’s war crimes allegations on Thursday, Guterres avoided answering.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, blasted Guterres’s statements as “shameful, farfetched, and completely detached from reality.”

“Time after time the UN Secretary-General disregards brutal Palestinian terror and neglects to condemn the cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians,” Erdan told The Times of Israel. “Yet when discussing defensive IDF actions aimed solely at dismantling terror infrastructure, the Secretary-General is quick to issue extensive condemnations of Israel, completely detached from the truth.”

Erdan demanded Guterres retract his comments and “condemn the Palestinian terrorism and incitement.”

On Tuesday, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk decried the cycle of violence in Israel and the West Bank, after a Palestinian terrorist wounded seven people in a car ramming and stabbing spree in Tel Aviv. One of the injured was a pregnant woman who lost her unborn child as a result of her wounds.

Turk said the scale of the Jenin operation, including the use of repeated airstrikes, along with the destruction of property, raised serious issues regarding international human rights norms and standards.

“The use of airstrikes is inconsistent with rules applicable to the conduct of law enforcement operations. In a context of occupation, the deaths resulting from such airstrikes may also amount to willful killings,” he said.

Top UN human rights officials involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have made a number of antisemitic statements, and the General Assembly condemned Israel more than all other countries combined last year.