Indonesia have renewed a wave of air strikes, according to West Papua separatists, bombing several virtuous villages surrounding the small town of Ilaga, while displacing entire communities that has reignited memories of past atrocities in the disputed Western New Guinea region.

The attacks, coming on the heels of similar strikes last week, have reportedly killed a Papuan civilian while leaving another man seriously injured.

Neither of the men are reportedly soldiers.

United Liberation Movement for West Papua interim president, Benny Wenda, said the military operation had deliberately targeted seven villages claimed to be possible headquarters for the guerrilla operations of the West Papua National Liberation Army.

"All their inhabitants have been displaced, forced to flee into the bush living as refugees in their own ancestral lands," Wenda said.

Reports suggest Deris Kogoya, who was only 18, was killed by a rocket fired from a helicopter while riding his motorbike on Thursday, near the village of Kelanungin.

Jemi Waker, a friend of Kogoya's, reportedly suffered critical injuries to his legs and remains in his own unnamed village where he is receiving treatment over fears of further attacks should he seek proper hospital treatment.

"These are innocent young men – not TPNPB fighters, as Indonesia inevitably claimed," Wenda said.

Indonesia's strongarm tactics is a repeat of quelling the Free West Papua campaign, which the independence organisation says has been an occupation and suppression of an Indigenous culture for the past 63 years.

More than an estimated 11,000 West Papuans have been murdered by Indonesian forces.

Wenda condemned the military's use of Christian churches as bases, calling it "a longstanding (Indonesian National Armed Forces) practice, which is in breach of humanitarian law".

"This should be a wake-up call for Pacific leaders – are we not fellow Christians? Do our holy places do not deserve the protection from this brutality?" Wenda said.

Images have surfaced out of the region, showing Papuans holding Indonesian flags – not in solidarity or in allegiance, but in desperate attempt to survive the attacks.

This is a repeat of scenes in 1977, just 15 years after the Dutch colonialists handed the Western New Guinea territory to Indonesia amid what was one of the largest Papuan genocides so to reinforce the archipelagic state's authority on Indonesia's only distinct Indigenous population.

"My tribe also carried the Indonesian flag to try and keep our women and children safe," Wenda said over the 1977 conflict.

"Nonetheless, many were imprisoned, raped, tortured, and many thousands were massacred."

The recent attack has also revived the tactics which were used during Suharto's presidential years, militarising civilian life and consolidating authoritarian control.

Wenda's own experience as a child was spent living in the bush for five years until soldiers had marched back after Papuans began falling in line.

While helicopters and planes are said to be the weapons of choice 48 years later, West Papuan separatists explain that villagers, especially women and children, fear drones assembled out of China the most due to their element of surprise by emerging out of nowhere in dense bush.

The military escalation, which began in other parts of the subservient region, has expanded to the highlands, focusing on the Puncak mountains, with no clear end in sight to the fighting.

"We do not know where it will end," Wenda said.

Wenda intimated violence has escalated under the reign of Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto, who was recently praised by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for ensuring that no Russian military bases will be allowed on Indonesian sovereign soil during diplomatic talks in Jakarta.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua is urgently calling for international intervention, with a clear list of its demands.

They include to allow all journalists – foreign and domestic – in the media to report freely from West Papua, to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to access the region – as 110 UN member states have already demanded – and to withdraw the military occupation.

"Indonesia has hidden West Papua from the world for over six decades," Wenda said.

"The only evidence we have of the operations is shaky video footage from civilian journalists."