Newly surfaced CCTV footage, authenticated and released by the BBC, documents the fatal shooting of 14-year-old Jad Jadallah by Israeli security forces during a military operation in the Fara refugee camp, located south of Tubas in the occupied West Bank. The incident occurred in November.
The video evidence, corroborated by eyewitness accounts, depicts a harrowing scene where approximately 14 soldiers encircled the wounded teenager for a minimum of 45 minutes as he bled on the ground, with no visible attempts to administer emergency medical assistance. Despite the Israeli military’s subsequent claim that “initial medical treatment” was provided, local reports confirm that ambulance crews were actively blocked from accessing the scene to offer aid.
The army’s justification for the lethal force centers on an accusation that the teen was throwing rocks—an act it claims warrants such a response. However, footage from the scene appears to show a soldier placing an object next to Jadallah’s body after the shooting and photographing it, a move his family and human rights observers condemn as a potential attempt to fabricate evidence.
The broader CCTV footage provides context: it shows Jadallah and two friends in an alleyway observing the military incursion. Upon sighting the soldiers, one friend flees while Jadallah finds himself in direct proximity to a soldier, who raises his rifle. The teen attempts to run away, seemingly already injured, before the soldier fires again.
Multiple videos of the incident have circulated. One shows soldiers searching Jadallah’s body before taking it into custody. Another captures the critically wounded boy attempting to rise before collapsing. Critical details, including the number of gunshot wounds, remain unknown as the Israeli military continues to withhold Jadallah’s body, refusing to release it to his family or comment on autopsy findings.
This practice of retaining Palestinian bodies is permitted under Israeli law. A 2018 amendment to the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law, later upheld by the Supreme Court, authorized the state to withhold the bodies of individuals it deems to have committed acts of violence. Israeli forces labeled Jadallah a “terrorist” posthumously without presenting public evidence.
Jadallah is one of 55 children killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank last year and part of a total of 227 Palestinian children killed since October 2023. Furthermore, Israeli authorities are currently withholding the bodies of at least 766 identified Palestinians, a number that has nearly doubled since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, despite Hamas having returned all Israeli captives’ bodies.