The White House’s national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday that it had demanded an explanation from Israel.
Kirby said, “We’ve seen that video, and we found it deeply disturbing. If it’s proven to be authentic, it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behavior by professional soldiers.”
In the footage, three soldiers can be seen picking up what appears to be a stiff body and dragging it towards the edge of a roof as troops stand on the ground below. The soldiers on the roof peer over the edge before heaving the body off.
On an adjacent rooftop, the soldiers hold another apparently lifeless body by its limbs and swing it over the edge.
In a third instance, a soldier kicks a body toward the edge before it falls from view.
The incident took place in the town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, where the Israeli military has been carrying out large-scale raids since late August that the Palestinian health ministry says have killed dozens of people.
A wide-scale Israeli military offensive on Thursday in Qabatiya lasted nearly 10 hours resulted in the murder of seven Palestinians and left 11 others injured from live ammunition.
