Israeli forces slew three Palestinian armed group members in a hospital located in the occupied West Bank.
Members of a covert unit, posing as medics and other civilians, traversed a corridor while brandishing rifles, as captured on surveillance footage.
According to the Israeli military, one of the men was preparing to launch an assault while the others were hidden in the Jenin hospital.
The health ministry of the Palestinian Authority has levied allegations against Israel, claiming that a “new massacre inside hospitals” occurred.
Hamas, an armed Palestinian Islamist organization embroiled in a conflict with Israel in Gaza that began with its unprecedented assaults on Israel on October 7, reported that three of its members had been “executed” by Israeli forces.
Two of those slain, according to another armed group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were brothers who were members of the group. Additionally, it was stated that one of them had been hospitalized for treatment.
Multiple members of the Israeli covert unit, both men and women, are captured on surveillance footage from the Ibn Sina hospital rushing through a corridor while directing their weapons to the left and right. An individual is observed removing an article of clothing from an unidentified supine individual with his hands behind his head, and the object is being used to conceal his head.
Evidently, as props, the footage depicts two members of the unit transporting a folded wheelchair and a baby carrier.
Hospital Execution Sparks International Concern
Visual documentation from the room where the alleged shootings occurred reveals walls and floors covered in blood, alongside a bed adorned with a soiled blue pillow that bears a bullet wound.
“The three men were executed while they slept in the room,” Dr. Naji Nazzal, the director of the hospital, told Reuters. “They executed them in cold blood by firing bullets directly into their heads in the room where they were being treated.”
The assault has caused concern among the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which serves as the custodian of the Geneva Conventions, the foundation of international humanitarian law.
“Hospitals and medical patients should always be respected and protected in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the ICRC stated, adding that it would “raise the issue in a confidential dialogue with the relevant authorities.”
Since the October 7 attacks, tensions in the West Bank have escalated significantly, with Israeli arrest operations and Palestinian clashes occurring almost daily. The militant stronghold Jenin has been the target of these types of assaults for months.
The United Nations reports that Israeli forces have slain a minimum of 357 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7; settlers in Israel have claimed the lives of at least eight of these individuals, including militants, civilians, and attackers.
West Bank Palestinians have murdered a minimum of ten Israelis in attacks that have co-occurred in the West Bank and Israel.
IDF Retaliation Escalates Gaza Conflict
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated in a statement that the deceased Hamas suspect “had devised a raid attack inspired by the October 7 massacre.” Waves of Hamas militants invaded Israel from Gaza on that date, killing approximately 1,300 people (mostly civilians) and taking 250 others as hostages to Gaza.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the attack, which it officially declared would annihilate Hamas. In the Israeli offensive, the health ministry in Gaza, which Hamas controls, reports that over 26,600 Palestinians have been slain, the majority of whom are children and women.
According to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency in the West Bank, the three Palestinians who were admitted to the hospital had been “assassinated.”
As per hospital sources, approximately ten Israeli special forces personnel clad in civilian attire proceeded to the third floor, where they utilized silencer-equipped weapons to execute the men.
One of the males, identified by PIJ as a member, had been hospitalized since October 25 for a spinal injury that rendered him paralyzed, according to Dr. Naji Nazzal.
