AP (“Israeli undercover forces dressed as women and medics storm West Bank hospital, killing 3 militants“):
Israeli forces disguised as civilian women and medical workers stormed a hospital Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, killing three Palestinian militants in a dramatic raid that underscored how deadly violence has spilled into the territory from the war in Gaza.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces opened fire inside the wards of the Ibn Sina Hospital in the town of Jenin. The ministry condemned the raid and called on the international community to pressure Israel’s military to halt such operations in hospitals. A hospital spokesperson said there was no exchange of fire, indicating that it was a targeted killing.
The military said the militants were using the hospital as a hideout, without providing evidence. It alleged that one of those targeted in the raid had transferred weapons and ammunition to others for a planned attack, purportedly inspired by the Hamas assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that triggered the war in Gaza.
Footage said to be security camera video from the hospital that circulated on social media showed about a dozen undercover forces, most of them armed, dressed as women with Muslim headscarves or hospital staff in scrubs or white doctor’s coats. One in a surgical mask carried a rifle in one arm and a folded wheelchair in the other. The forces were seen patting down one man who kneeled against a wall, his arms raised.
[…]
The military said in Tuesday’s hospital raid, forces killed Mohammed Jalamneh, 27, who it said was planning an imminent attack. The two other men killed, brothers Basel and Mohammed Ghazawi, were hiding inside the hospital and were involved in attacks, the military claimed.
The military did not provide details on how the three were killed. Its statement said Jalamneh was armed with a pistol, but made no mention of an exchange of fire.
Hamas claimed the three men as members, calling the operation “a cowardly assassination.”
Hospital spokesperson Tawfiq al-Shobaki said there was no exchange. He said the Israelis attacked doctors, nurses, and hospital security during the raid.
“What happened is a precedent,” he said. “There was never an assassination inside a hospital. There were arrests and assaults, but not an assassination.”
He said Basel Ghazawi had been a patient in the hospital since October with partial paralysis.
All of the reports I’m seeing on the incident are either other sites using AP wire copy or “re-reporting” of the AP story. The Daily Beast reposts a cell phone video of the attack from Twitter.
The main sources for the report are Palestinian but there are vaguely-attributed reports from the Israeli military that seem to confirm the broad details.
The Palestinian sources seem to be most outraged by the fact that the IDF stormed a hospital to assassinate militants. While it makes me squeamish, it’s quite possibly justifiable under the laws of war, if Hamas is using it as a base. On the other hand, soldiers disguising themselves as noncombatants in order to gain military advantage is almost certainly an act of perfidy, arguably the most heinous of war crimes because it endangers the very existence of laws of war.
To be sure, Hamas is a nonstate actor that is neither a signatory to international law nor an adherent to it. That does not, however, change Israel’s obligations.
