The Israeli military command overseeing operations in the occupied West Bank has expanded its “open fire orders,” leading to a surge in the killing of Palestinian civilians by IDF troops, Haaretz reported on Monday.
One of the orders allows Israeli troops to fire on unarmed Palestinians if they are “messing with the ground.” The claim is that this order is necessary to prevent explosives from being planted, but sources told Haaretz it has made soldiers “trigger happy.”
The other order allows Israeli troops to open fire on any vehicles approaching Israeli military checkpoints that are leaving combat zones to force them to stop. Since the combat zones are residential areas, this means the IDF can open fire on civilians trying to flee.
These orders led to the killing of a husband and his wife, Sundus Shalabi, who was eight months pregnant. Initial reports said Shalabi’s husband was “critically injured” by the Israeli military attack, but Haaretz said he was shot dead.
Sources told Haaretz that the husband was shot and killed while driving near Tulkarm, and Shalabi was shot dead after managing to get out of the car. According to an IDF investigation, Shalabi was shot because she “looked suspiciously at the ground.” No weapons or explosives were found in the car, which was carrying their two children. Palestinian officials said paramedics couldn’t attempt to save Shalabi’s unborn baby because IDF troops blocked the ambulance.
There have been many other incidents of civilian deaths in the Israeli military’s current operation in the West Bank, dubbed “Iron Wall,” which was launched on January 21. In one incident, IDF troops shot a two-year-old girl in the head while she was inside a house eating dinner with her family.
On Saturday, Saddam Hussein Iyad Rajab, a 7-year-old boy, died of wounds he sustained by Israeli gunfire 10 days earlier. The boy was shot over the claim that he was “messing with the ground.”
The Haaretz report also revealed the Israeli military has been using Palestinian civilians as human shields to check for explosives inside buildings, a practice that became common in Gaza.
The report said another Palestinian woman, 21-year-old Rahaf al-Ashkar, was killed on Sunday by an explosive charge placed at the entrance of her home that was placed by the IDF. The Israeli troops placed the explosive charge after they ordered anyone inside to leave over claims a “terrorist” was inside. The explosive was set off when al-Ashkar opened the door.
The Haaretz report said that after the explosion, the Isralei soldiers “selected at random a resident of the refugee camp to check the scene and make sure that no other explosive charge had been placed that the soldiers were unaware of.”