UN demands probe into killing of West Bank Palestinian by Israeli forces

The UN called on Monday for an investigation into the death of a Palestinian after he was shot by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian health officials said 22-year-old Omar Badawi was shot in the chest on Monday in Al-Aroub refugee camp, near Hebron city. It was not immediately clear if he had taken part in the protests marking the 15th anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Video circulated on social media, and which could not immediately be verified by Reuters, showed a young man with what appears to be a piece of white cloth in his hand emerging hesitantly from an alleyway. A shot rings out and he collapses.

“Shocking to see the video (of) today's killing of Omar Badawi by Israeli security forces,” Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for Middle East peace, tweeted, adding that the Palestinians appeared to have “posed no threat to anyone.”

“Such acts must be thoroughly investigated,” Mladenov said.

Shocking to see the video today’s killing of Omar Badawi by #Israeli security forces in #Hebron in circumstances that would seem to indicate that he posed no threat to anyone. My deepest condolences to his family. Such acts must be thoroughly investigated.

— Nickolay E. MLADENOV (@nmladenov) November 11, 2019

An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops were sent into Al-Aroub in pursuit of local Palestinians who had thrown rocks at cars on a nearby road, and opened fire when confronted by “a large number of rioters,”, some of them with petrol bombs.

The fatal shooting was under investigation, she added.

The West Bank, among territories where Palestinians seek statehood, has seen sporadic violence since US-brokered peace talks with Israel stalled in 2014.