Israeli forces dressed in civilian clothes stormed a hospital in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday night and detained a man suspected of taking part in a shooting attack near an Israeli settlement.
The man was reportedly injured days earlier in an Israeli airstrike that killed two Hamas members.
“About 20 disguised Israeli special forces — nurses and even Palestinian women — stormed the hospital,” he told CNN a hospital employee, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
“The entire process took less than six minutes — invasion, kidnapping and exit,” he said.
A video obtained by CNN it shows Israeli forces, one of whom wore a white coat, taking the suspect out of the Nablus hospital in a wheelchair and into an unmarked van.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that after an “attempt to eliminate” the suspect, “security forces precisely operated on him and apprehended him today” at a hospital in Nablus.
The military alleged that the man, identified as Ayman Ghanam, took part in an August shooting attack near an Israeli settlement in the northern West Bank that killed one Israeli civilian and injured another.
Ghanam was injured in an Israeli airstrike on a car near the northern West Bank city of Aqaba on Tuesday, which the IDF said targeted “a terrorist cell planning an imminent terrorist attack.”
The hospital employee told the CNN that Ghanam, who had been “seriously injured,” was in intensive care at the time of the Israeli attack and had undergone surgery to treat abdominal and leg injuries.
The military wing of the Qassam Brigades noted in a statement that Tuesday’s attack killed two of its members “following a treacherous Zionist bombardment to which they were subjected” while carrying out a mission with other fighters near Aqaba.
Authorities criticize action
The International Committee of the Red Cross said international law prohibits “pretending civilian or non-combatant status” to kill, injure or capture an adversary.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas, called the attack “a flagrant violation of all international laws and conventions that stipulate the protection of treatment centers and patients.”
The IDF commented that the operation was planned to “mitigate harm to patients and hospital medical staff.”
In January, they infiltrated the Ibn Sina hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jeninon and killed three Palestinian men.
The Israel Defense Forces stressed that it “will continue to operate wherever necessary to thwart terrorism in the area and maintain the safety of Israeli civilians.”
