Israeli troops fired “warning shots” towards a group of 25 diplomats visiting Jenin in the Israel-occupied West Bank on Wednesday, prompting a wave of outrage and calls for an investigation from world leaders and ministers.
Footage shows a number of diplomats giving media interviews when rapid shots rang out nearby, forcing them to run for cover. The delegation comprised ambassadors and diplomats representing 31 countries, including Italy, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, the UK, China and Russia.
The group was on an official mission organised by the Palestinian Authority to observe the humanitarian situation there. The Israeli military said the visit had been approved but the delegation “deviated from the approved route” and Israeli soldiers fired warning shots to distance them from the area.
The Canadian, British, French and other European ministers summoned Israeli ambassadors in their respective capitals to explain the “unacceptable” incident, which will fuel already growing international anger and concern as Israel continues its offensive in Gaza and ramps up the expansion of settlements in the West Bank that are illegal under international law.
Germany, a longtime Israel ally, condemned what it called “unprovoked firing,” while Canada, Turkey and the EU demanded an investigation.
“We expect an immediate explanation of what happened. It’s totally unacceptable,” Canadian prime minister Mark Carney told a press conference. Four Canadian diplomats were part of the group.
A spokesperson for UN secretary general António Guterres also urged Israel to conduct a “thorough investigation”.
“It is clear that diplomats who are doing their work should never be shot at, attacked in any way, shape or form, and their safety, their inviolability, must be respected at all times,” said the spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.
Egypt said the incident “violates all diplomatic norms”.
The Palestinian foreign ministry accused Israel of having “deliberately targeted” the diplomatic delegation with live fire.
The IDF said it regretted “the inconvenience caused” and that senior officials would contact diplomats to inform them of the results of its internal investigation into the incident.
Jenin was the focus of a big Israeli assault in January that forced tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, one of the largest West Bank displacements in years.
A new wave of airstrikes and artillery shelling killed at least 82 people in Gaza on Wednesday, including several women and a week-old infant, the Gaza health ministry and hospital officials said.
In Khan Younis, where Israel recently ordered new evacuations before an expected major attack into the southern city, 24 people were killed, including 14 from the same family, Palestinian officials reported.
Late on Wednesday, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said “all of the Gaza Strip will be under the Israeli army’s control” by the end of its intensified offensive. Amid growing international pressure on Israel to allow food to reach starving Palestinians, he said: “We must avoid a humanitarian crisis in order to preserve our freedom of operational action.”
About 100 aid trucks have entered Gaza since Monday when Netanyahu’s government agreed to lift the 11-week blockade that has led to the territory facing a “critical risk of famine”. On Wednesday, several dozen passed through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint but their cargos had yet to be distributed late on Wednesday.
Abdel-Nasser al-Ajramy, the head of the bakery owners’ society in Gaza, said at least 25 bakeries that had been told they would receive flour from the World Food Programme had seen nothing and there had been no relief from the hunger for people waiting for food.
Much of Gaza’s 2.3 million population rely for survival on free bakeries and community kitchens. Almost all have shut down.
“There is no flour, no food, no water,” said Sabah Warsh Agha, a 67-year-old woman from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. “We used to get water from the pump, now the pump has stopped working. There is no diesel or gas.”
Complex logistics, continued fighting, an Israeli requirement to reload cargoes on to new trucks after they enter Gaza, the limited availability of fuel and the poor condition of roads are all slowing the distribution of aid, humanitarian officials said.
The Guardian understands that further delays were caused when the Israeli military instructed aid agencies to send convoys carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of flour on routes along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt and along the coast, both of which are considered prone to looting.
The new offensive in Gaza followed a two-month ceasefire and has drawn fierce condemnation from countries that have previously avoided expressing open criticism of Israel. Even the US, the country’s most important ally, has shown signs of losing patience with Netanyahu.
On Tuesday, Britain announced the suspension of talks with Israel on a free trade deal, and has, along with France and Canada, threatened “concrete actions” if Israel continues its offensive and restrictions on the free flow of aid.
Separately, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the bloc was reviewing its agreement with Israel governing trade ties over its conduct of the war in Gaza. The pact specifies that all signatories must show “respect for human rights and democratic principles”.
The EU’s review could be completed relatively quickly as officials could draw on a 34-page report compiled late last year that details multiple allegations of systemic violations of international law during the conflict by both Israel and Hamas.
The report, seen by the Guardian, includes UN statistics on casualty figures and concludes that 44% of those killed in the first months of the Israeli offensive were children. It also lists Israeli strikes on hospitals and stresses that under international humanitarian law, states have the “negative obligation” not to aid or assist in violations of international humanitarian law by parties to a conflict.
In Jerusalem, the MP Ayman Odeh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was removed from the Knesset podium by security after accusing the government of killing 19,000 children in Gaza and waging war on civilians and the innocent.
Earlier this week, Yair Golan, a leftwing opposition leader, drew a furious response from the government and its supporters when he said “a sane country doesn’t kill babies as a hobby” and that Israel risked becoming a “pariah state among the nations”.
Golan, a former deputy commander of the Israeli military, is leader of one of the bigger minority parties in Israel’s parliament. His words – and similar comments made by the former prime minister Ehud Olmert in an interview with the BBC – represented a rare focus on Palestinian suffering by leading Israeli political figures. Most domestic criticism of the war has centred on the fate of hostages held in Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, dismissed the criticism as “shocking”.
“While IDF soldiers are fighting Hamas, there are those who are strengthening the false propaganda against the state of Israel,” Netanyahu, who leads the most rightwing government in Israel’s history, said.
Indirect ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha have faltered. Israel recalled much of its negotiating team on Tuesday, saying it would leave lower-level officials in place instead. Qatari leaders, who are mediating negotiations, said there was a large gap between the two sides that they had been unable to bridge.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, about a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the others were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s ensuing offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
