JERUSALEM – According to various news sources, the Israeli army killed two members of one family and injured four others at their house in the West Bank yesterday. The incident took place in the Rajoub village east of Nablus in the early morning hours.

Israeli military sources claim that their soldiers fired at the house in response to gunfire from the house. They further claim that they later raided and searched the house, where they found weapons and ammunition. However, preliminary investigations conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) refute these claims.

MIFTAH is appalled by this latest incident, and would like to stress two things: firstly, this is not an isolated incident, and Palestinian civilians have become sadly too accustomed to such inhumane practices by the Israeli army. Secondly, this incident comes at time when both Palestinians and Israelis are supposed to observing a truce.

MIFTAH thus calls on the international community, specifically the Middle-East Peace quartet, to take immediate action to unequivocally halt the Israeli army from further human rights violations. This indiscriminate killing of civilians must come to an end.

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH, is a non-governmental, non-partisan Jerusalem-based institution dedicated to fostering democracy and good governance within Palestinian society through promoting public accountability, transparency, the free flow of information and ideas and the challenging of stereotyping at home and abroad.