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Middle East|Israeli Soldiers Fire in Air to Disperse Western Diplomats in West Bank
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/world/middleeast/israel-warning-shots-west-bank.html
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The event in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, came amid rising tensions between Israel and its foreign partners.
By Fatima AbdulKarim
Reporting from Ramallah, West Bank
May 21, 2025, 2:39 p.m. ET
Israeli soldiers fired warning shots on Wednesday to disperse a group of senior Western diplomats, Palestinian officials and journalists as they toured a Palestinian city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to statements by the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority and television footage from the scene.
No one was reported injured, but the event intensified the friction between Israel and its foreign partners amid growing international criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the West Bank. The gunfire came two days after Britain, France and Canada called for Israel to end the war in Gaza, and a day after Britain suspended trade talks with Israel and criticized its support for settlements in the West Bank.
Diplomats from all three countries were among a large diplomatic delegation on Wednesday that toured the city of Jenin in the West Bank, with officials from the Palestinian Authority, the semiautonomous institution that administers parts of the territory, including Jenin.
The authority had organized the tour to highlight how the Israeli military, seeking to stamp out armed groups, had captured and partly demolished an area on the edge of the city. The neighborhood is known as the Jenin refugee camp because it mostly houses the descendants of Palestinians forced to flee their homes during the wars surrounding the creation of the state of Israel.
Toward the end of the tour, Israeli soldiers in the neighborhood fired at least seven shots to disperse some of the visiting officials as they stood about 80 yards from the soldiers, on the other side of a closed gate, according to several videos verified by The New York Times. The footage showed that the shooting began as officials milled around conducting interviews with journalists, several of them with their backs turned to the soldiers.
After the gunshots rang out, the delegation quickly retreated from the barrier and some members took cover on a side street.
