Rights and Accountability 31 January 2024
An undercover Israeli death squad, disguised as Palestinians, stormed a hospital in the occupied West Bank and assassinated three, including a partially paralyzed patient.
Surveillance footage shows about a dozen Israeli special forces storming Ibn Sina hospital in the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday. They were dressed as Palestinian doctors, nurses and civilian women, and were armed with rifles as they moved through the corridors.
One Israeli soldier pushed a patient in a wheelchair “in order to gain access to the hospital’s third floor, while another carried a baby bag” containing a weapon, stated the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
There on the third floor, the Israeli forces entered the room of injured patient Basel Ghazzawi, 18, where he was with his 23-year-old brother, Muhammad Ghazzawi, as well as their friend Muhammad Jalamneh, 27.
Using silencer-fitted guns, the soldiers assassinated all three men and then left the hospital. The operation lasted about 10 minutes.Basel was reportedly shot in the head. An image of a bloodied pillow with an apparent bullet hole in the center was circulated on social media.
The Israeli military said this had been a joint operation with the domestic spying and torture agency Shin Bet.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor described the killings as an “extrajudicial execution,” as was also suggested by the United Nations Human Rights Office, which called it a “seemingly planned” one.“A scene we have gotten used to”
Israeli media said the operation was possible “thanks to precise intelligence received prior to the activity,” suggesting there was information from a Palestinian collaborator.
Undercover Israeli agents – so-called mistaravim – dress up as Palestinians to infiltrate groups of civilians, often during protests against Israel’s military occupation.
Israel has used mistaravim to kidnap and kill Palestinians inside hospitals in the past.
“It is a scene we [have gotten] used to, where Israeli soldiers disguised as civilians invade the hospital to detain the injured people,” Dr. Tawfiq Shawbaki, the head of Ibn Sina’s surgery unit, stated.
“This time was different. They were disguised as doctors and medical personnel.”
Muhammad Ghazzawi was one of the founders of the Jenin Brigade, a militant group that formed in the Jenin refugee camp and is associated with Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad resistance group.
His younger brother Basel had been receiving treatment at the hospital after he was reportedly injured by an Israeli military drone missile near a cemetery in the Jenin refugee camp on 25 October.
Basel had reportedly been a child at the time of his injury, according to the UN Human Rights Office.
The same Israeli attack killed three Palestinian children.
Muhammad Jalamneh was a member of Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, the group said in a statement. The Israeli military claimed Jalamneh was planning an “immediate” attack that was “inspired by the events of 7 October.”
The Israeli army published a picture of a pistol they said they had found n the scene.
The Israeli military claimed that “wanted” Palestinians hide in hospitals and use them “as a base for planning terrorist activity,” calling it an example of using “hospitals as a shelter and as a human shield.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, hailed the extrajudicial execution as “heroic.”
Ben-Gvir visited a Border Police base in the occupied West Bank earlier this month and posted with undercover Israeli agents disguised as Palestinians. The Israeli interior minister encouraged them to “shoot” Palestinians.
“You have complete backing from me. When your life is in danger or see a terrorist – even if he does not endanger you – shoot. I have your back.”
“A complex crime”
“Israeli forces have committed a complex crime in which there are multiple violations of the rules of international humanitarian law,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said.
The group said the men “did not pose any danger to anyone,” and that they included a “seriously injured person, at a time when the perpetrators could have been arrested for the aforementioned crimes.”
Muhammad Jalamneh’s father, Walid Jalamneh, said Israeli forces had been intimidating the family, raiding their home and arresting Walid and Muhammad’s brother to put pressure on him to hand himself over.
An Israeli officer who interrogated Walid Jalamneh threatened him that his son was going to be on a kill list.
“The intelligence officer told me, ‘Your son is now on the arrest list. If he does not surrender himself, he will be on the assassination list,’” Walid Jalamneh told media in the wake of his son’s assassination.
“So I said to them, ‘You are a state, so what can I do?’” he continued.
“He left the house and did not return. If you want him, then the city of Jenin is before you. Search for him and take him.”
The US State Department defended Israel’s operation at Ibn Sina hospital.
“Hospitals do lose some of their protections if they are being used … for the planning of terrorist operations, for the execution of terrorist operations,” Mathew Miller told Associated Press reporter Matt Lee, who asked about the incident.
Miller denied that any Palestinian civilians had been injured. When asked how he knew this, he said it was because “there have been no reports of civilians who have been harmed in this operation.”
Dr Shawabki said Israeli forces beat some doctors and nurses during their invasion of the hospital.
“We think it is appropriate that they have the ability to bring members of Hamas to justice,” Miller told another journalist, Said Ereikat, who asked if this was conduct befitting a state.Since 7 October, Israel has routinely conducted prolonged military raids in towns, cities and refugee camps across the West Bank to try to stifle the armed resistance. They have also caused extensive damage inside refugee camps – streets, homes and commercial areas, as well as water, electricity and road infrastructure, have been devastated due to successive Israeli raids in those areas.
Israeli troops have killed at least 360 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, and at least eight were killed by settlers, the UN monitoring group OCHA has reported.
Of those killed, 95 were children.
Israeli forces and settlers have injured nearly 4,400 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October, 660 of them children.
Comments
incitement
Permalink Peter Purich replied on
A terrorist fascist regime lob allegations against a liberation organization, the UNRWA and the injured in a hospital, no less, then: "One Israeli soldier pushed a patient in a wheelchair “in order to gain access to the hospital’s third floor, while another carried a baby bag” containing a weapon, stated the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor." Then, the poster blob vomiting assault rifles to his Fascist Friends ("settlers") while said blob says: “You have complete backing from me. When your life is in danger or see a terrorist – even if he does not endanger you – shoot. I have your back.” Then, we don't have a month from said terrorist fascist regime to flip the bird in the face of the ICJ with the help of the corpse hegemon and vassals (eg. Canada). No doubt the "USA" will vote against the UNSC but what news from China and Russia?
Hamas fights the IOF/IDF in the field.
The terrorist fascist regime ("Israel") murders civilians, homes, hospitals, mosques, churches, UN schools, etc. because Hamas has served the IOF/IDF on a plate.
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/...
https://strategic-culture.su/n...
false flag
Permalink kronik replied on
Clearly this was a last ditch effort to justify genocide. Israelis dressed as " Hamas " so they get blamed. it's glaringly obvious who gave them this idea...i grew up reading about all the 3 digit acronyms doing stuff like this in foreign countries. then i read about, " Operation Northwoods " from 1962. read into that, and you see who's behind it all. this was a hit, obviously.
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