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The US State Department said on Saturday that Israel bears responsibility for investigating violations of the laws of war, commenting on the Israeli army’s targeting and killing of 4 Palestinian civilians after following them with a drone in the Gaza Strip.
This came in a statement by a US State Department spokesman to Anadolu Agency, commenting on the exclusive scenes shown by Al Jazeera, showing the Israeli drone tracking the four civilians before killing them with missiles it fired at them.
The ministry spokesman said that they "have not yet confirmed the authenticity of the scenes," but he expressed his great concern about them, and confirmed that he had requested more information from Israeli officials about them.
The spokesman added that Israel "bears responsibility to investigate violations of the laws of war." He stressed the need for the Israeli authorities to expose those responsible and punish them in this context.
He also stressed the need to prevent similar violations from occurring again.
Scenes of the incident
The day before yesterday, Thursday, Al Jazeera channel showed exclusive scenes showing an Israeli drone targeting 4 Palestinian civilians in the Al-Sika area in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
The scenes were taken from an Israeli drone that was shot down in Khan Yunis at the beginning of last February. They show the four young Palestinian men being pursued by the drone while they were unarmed and targeted with several missiles. Two of them were martyred with the first missile, then the third was martyred, and then the fourth was martyred with two other missiles.
According to a report by Al Jazeera correspondent Salam Khader, this area has witnessed Israeli bombing and military operations since the start of the incursion into the Southern Governorate early last December.
The scenes show young men walking - searching for their homes or what remains of them - among rubble left by aircraft and occupation shells, on a road that was swept away by occupation vehicles before they withdrew from it by land.
It is clearly shown from the clip that the four civilians do not carry weapons and do not pose any danger.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of civilians martyred and wounded, most of them children and women, a humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure, which led to Tel Aviv being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of “genocide.” ".
Source: Al Jazeera + agencies