Mourners carry the body of Palestinian Oday Jaber whom medics said was killed by Israeli troops during clashes at a protest against the Israeli offensive in Gaza on Friday, during his funeral in the West Bank village of Rafat near Ramallah August 2, 2014 (Photo: Reuters)
Human Rights Watch accused Israel on Sunday of "unlawfully" killing two Palestinians who joined protests in the West Bank against Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip on 25 July.
HRW pointed out that the "available evidence" - mainly medical reports and sources - showed that they died of gunshot wounds caused by live ammunition.
"A third man at the same protest also appeared to have been killed unlawfully. Although witnesses said he threw stones, he was 35 meters away when he was shot and could not have posed an imminent deadly threat to Israeli forces," the international rights organisation said.
In its report, HRW stated that some offenses by Israeli forces in the West Bank as part of their occupation could be "subject to prosecution as war crimes."
Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director, held Israel's military responsible for both "reckless and deliberate" killings in Gaza and " unlawfully killing" Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank.
On 24 July, Palestinian factions in the West Bank declared a "Day of Rage" after night clashes around the West Bank and in some sectors of the Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.
Police said that because of fears of violence over the deadly Gaza campaign, they would bar men under 50 from Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque for what are usually packed prayers on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
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