The diplomats were undertaking an official mission on Wednesday to assess the humanitarian situation in Jenin as a wide-scale Israeli military assault there, which has caused deaths and displacement, enters its fourth month.
The Israeli army said its soldiers fired warning shots to move the delegation away because it had deviated from a previously agreed route and entered an area it was not authorised to be in. There were no injuries.
The commander of the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank ordered Israeli officers to speak with representatives of the delegation’s countries who “will soon hold personal conversations with the diplomats and update them on the findings of the initial investigation conducted on the matter”, the military said in a statement.
Videos on social media show delegation members giving media interviews when shots are heard ringing out close to the group and forcing it to run for cover.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency also showed two Israeli soldiers standing nearby with their rifles pointing towards the diplomats.
About 20 diplomats were being briefed at the time about the situation in Jenin, an aid worker speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press news agency. Witnesses said it was unclear where the shots came from and no one was injured.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned in “the strongest possible terms the heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces, which deliberately targeted by live fire an accredited diplomatic delegation”.
Other European and Arab governments added their own condemnations with calls for answers.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has stated firing even warning shots was unacceptable. She had said a day earlier that the 27-nation bloc was reviewing its trade agreement with Israel due to the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza.
Jenin – along with Tulkarem and Nur Shams – has been the main focus of a large-scale Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank since January. Since then, Israeli forces have accelerated an already ongoing process of enforced mass displacement, home demolitions and mass arrests of Palestinians.
About 40,000 Palestinians remain displaced in the northern West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
