(CNN) – A United Nations staff member is among 10 people killed during an Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army and the UN reported on Friday.
Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, who worked as a medic in the El Far’a camp in the West Bank, “was shot dead on the roof of his house by a sniper during an Israeli military operation in the early hours of September 12,” he reported. the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in a statement.
Jawwad was shot three times in the chest “while he was on the roof of his house having coffee,” Juliette Touma, the agency’s communications director, also told CNN on Friday.
But the Israeli army has accused Jawwad and the others killed of being “terrorists.”
Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), confirmed this Friday that Jawwad was killed in an operation in the Far’a area of the West Bank, and alleged that he was “throwing explosive devices that represented a threat to the forces operating in the area.”
“IDF troops opened fire on him to eliminate the threat, and he was killed,” Shoshani said. He added that Jawwad was “known to Israeli security forces and had been complicit in other terrorist activities.”
The IDF said in an earlier statement Friday that its troops had located and dismantled “a vehicle equipped with explosives, explosives laboratories, operational communications rooms and weapons” during the operation that killed Jawwad.
CNN has contacted UNRWA for a comment on the IDF claims.
Jawwad, the first UNRWA employee killed in the West Bank in more than 10 years, is survived by his wife and five children, according to UNRWA.
In Gaza, at least 220 staff have been killed since October 7, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X this Wednesday.
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry condemned Jawwad’s murder in a statement Friday, calling it a “heinous crime.”
The IDF has expressed distrust of some UNRWA staff before. In January, he accused several UNRWA members in Gaza of direct involvement in the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel led by Hamas. A UN investigation in August found that nine UNRWA employees “may have” been involved in the October 7 attack and no longer work at the agency.
The other people killed in the Israeli operation in the last 48 hours died in the areas of Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Tubas, according to the IDF.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Islamic Jihad, said the five killed in Tubas were members of the Tubas Battalion in the West Bank and that they were “preparing ambushes and explosive devices against” Israeli forces.
The death comes amid increasing Israeli military action in the West Bank.
Recent Israeli operations have had a strong impact on humanitarian resources in the area, leaving the El Far’a, Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Jenin refugee camps “especially affected”, and destroying basic infrastructure such as water and electricity. , declared UNWRA.
The agency said it had been forced to suspend its services to refugees in the area due to the “unacceptable risk” posed to both staff and aid recipients by Israeli and Palestinian groups, including the danger posed by “the improvised explosive devices by Palestinian armed actors.”
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “fundamental changes” in the way Israeli forces operate in the occupied West Bank following the killing of US activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest last week.
The harsh reprimand came after the IDF said Tuesday that it was “very likely” that Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire.”
Nearly 700 Palestinians have died in the West Bank since October, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah and the UN. The figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.
CNN’s Mounira Elsamra contributed to this report.
