Israel has defended the actions of its soldiers over the fatal shooting of two Palestinians during a West Bank protest last week.
A video has emerged of the incident on May 15 at a Nakba Day rally at Ofer Prison near Ramallah which Palestinians are claiming shows that neither of the rioters posed a threat at the time when they were shot.
In a statement on Tuesday, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said the Israeli soldiers acted appropriately, as they “were in a situation where their lives were in danger”.
The IDF said that the video footage had been edited in a “biased and tendentious way” and did not show the violence that its soldiers had experienced.
A preliminary investigation by the IDF immediately after the incidents concluded that that there had been no live fire. The IDF has now opened a new probe into the shootings.
The footage, allegedly showing the deaths of Musaab Nuwarah, 20, and Mohammed Udeh, 17, during the demonstration, was released by Defence for Children International Palestine, an NGO which describes itself as having an “international secretariat in Geneva and consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe”.