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Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank: Disguised as medical staff
Photo: Majdi Mohammed / dpa
Israeli special forces have killed three Palestinian militants in a hospital in the northern West Bank. The army said the target of the operation on Tuesday night was a member of the terrorist organization Hamas and two other extremist Palestinians with connections to Islamic Jihad. The men were hiding in the Ibn Sina Hospital. Video footage, presumably from the hospital in the city of Jenin, showed Israeli special forces entering the clinic, some disguised as medical staff.
According to the information, the wanted men came from the refugee district of the city of Jenin, which is considered a stronghold for militant Palestinians. The 27-year-old Hamas member was involved in various attacks on Israeli soldiers and was planning an imminent attack that was "inspired by the massacre on October 7th." He also had connections to the Hamas leadership abroad. The military's information could not initially be independently verified.
"They executed her in cold blood"
The hospital's medical director, Niji Nazzal, told Reuters the men were killed in their sleep. “They executed the three men as they slept in the room. They executed them in cold blood by shooting them directly in the head in the room where they were being treated,” Nazzal said. His information could not be verified either.
According to Palestinian information, one of the men was injured in an Israeli drone strike in October. He has been receiving treatment in the clinic since then. The other two men, one of them his brother, were with him during the Israeli mission. The Hamas-controlled Palestinian Health Ministry condemned the attack and called for international protection for medical facilities in the West Bank. Israel accuses militant Palestinian organizations of misusing medical facilities and ambulances for military purposes.
The situation in the West Bank has become significantly worse since the war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7th. According to the Ministry of Health, 366 Palestinians have since been killed in the West Bank alone.
czl/dpa/Reuters