UN employee shot dead by Israeli sniper in occupied West Bank

A sniper killed a UN worker on the roof of his home in the northern West Bank, the UN has said, as friends and family gathered in Turkey to bury a US-Turkish activist who had been killed by the Israeli military at a protest six days earlier and around 30km away.

Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, a sanitation worker with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, was the first Unrwa employee killed in the West Bank in more than a decade. Shot in the early hours of Thursday morning in el Far’a camp, he left behind a wife and five children.

The war in Gaza has overshadowed spiralling conflict in the West Bank, which has seen weeks of Israeli military operations and violence has reached “unprecedented levels, placing communities at risk,” Unrwa said.

“Civilian infrastructure, including water and electricity networks, have been destroyed, with precarious access for communities to basic supplies,” the agency said in a statement about Jawwad’s death. “Unrwa has been forced to suspend services to refugees because of the unacceptable risk to staff and beneficiaries.”

The violence was thrown into the international spotlight last week when an Israeli soldier killed 26 year-old US-Turkish activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest in Beita. She was in the town with International Solidarity Movement, a group dedicated to bringing observers trained in non-violent methods to protests.

On Saturday hundreds of people gathered for her burial in the Turkish coastal town of Didim, where her coffin was carried by an honour guard from the Turkish military. Many in the crowd carried Palestinian flags, and photos of Eygi.

Eyewitness Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli protester, said she posed no threat to troops when she was killed and that the shooting came during a moment of calm, following clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Israelis firing tear gas and bullets. The Israeli military said she was shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by one of its soldiers who were targeting violent protestors.

Her family have called for an investigation and the shooting drew criticism from US officials including president Joe Biden , who said he was “outraged and deeply saddened”.

The refugee camps of the northern West Bank, including Tulkaram, Jenin, Nur Shams and el Far’a, where Unrwa employee Jawwad was killed, have been a particular focus over weeks of Israeli military operations.

The Israeli military said Jawwad was killed by a sniper during an operation in the camp. It said he was throwing “explosive devices” at its troops from his home, without providing evidence. “It was found that the terrorist was known to Israeli security forces and he had been complicit in additional terrorist activities,” spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said in a statement.

UNWRA regularly provides lists of all staff members in Gaza and the West Bank to the Israeli government, and was not informed of any concerns about Jawwad before he was killed. Staff learned about the Israeli allegation from a statement on the social media site X.

The killing came days after Israeli airstrikes on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza killed six UNWRA staff members, bringing the total number of agency employees killed in this war to at least 220. Israel’s military said three of the dead Unrwa workers were Hamas employees, without providing evidence.

An independent review of previous Israeli claims that Unrwa staff were members of terrorist organisations found that the country was yet to provide any supporting evidence. It was led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna.