UN rights office receives reports Israeli troops ‘summarily killed’ Palestinians

The United Nations human rights office said it had received reports that Israeli troops “summarily killed” at least 11 unarmed Palestinians in a possible war crime in Gaza.

The office in the West Bank city of Ramallah said the killings were alleged to have been carried out in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City this week.

It said on Wednesday it had received “disturbing information alleging that Israeli Defence Forces (the Israeli army) summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men”.

The incident “raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime”, it said, adding the men were killed in front of their family members.

The report said troops also ordered women and children into a room “and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child”.

The Israeli authorities did not immediately comment.

Israeli troops have previously been accused of deliberately targeting and killing civilians, according to the office.

The war between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, began after the Islamist group attacked southern Israel on October 7 and killed around 1,140 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 20,000 people, most of them children or women, according to the Hamas government.