Israel investigates after videos show soldiers pushing bodies off West Bank roof

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QABATIYA, West Bank (Reuters) -The Israeli military said on Friday it had opened an investigation after videos showed soldiers pushing what appear to be dead bodies off a roof in the occupied West Bank during a raid against Palestinian militants.

The videos, which began circulating online on Thursday, showed three soldiers on the roof of a building in the town of Qabatiya, dragging, pushing, throwing and in one case kicking what appear to be dead men off the edge.

Zakaria Zakarneh, the uncle of one of the men, said he saw what had happened. Israeli soldiers had gone to the roof after the Palestinians were killed, he told Reuters.

“They tried to move the bodies down with a bulldozer but it didn’t work so they threw them from the second floor down to the ground,” he said. “I was in pain, very sad and angry I was unable to do anything,” Zakarneh said.

Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video as Qabatiya and confirm the date from eyewitness accounts and video filmed by local Palestinian news organisations showing the same scene.

The Israeli military said in a statement the incident was serious and was not in keeping with its values.

The U.S. said it had seen the video and immediately reached out to Israeli authorities, who promised to investigate and ensure accountability.

“We found it deeply disturbing. If it’s proven to be authentic, it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behaviour by professional soldiers,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters in a briefing.

In a separate statement, the Israeli military said that on Thursday its soldiers had killed seven militants in gun battles and an airstrike in Qabatiya.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza nearly a year ago, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gun battles between security forces and Palestinian fighters, as well as attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian communities.

(Reporting by Raneen Sawafta, Ali Sawafta and Maayan Lubell; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan)