This week, a video circulated on social media exhibiting a dozen Israeli particular forces troopers disguised as Palestinian civilians getting into Ibn Sina Hospital within the West Financial institution metropolis of Jenin, the place they proceeded to assassinate three Palestinian males – two of whom had been brothers.
Through the operation, additionally they attacked and terrorised hospital employees and different sufferers. Within the video, they’re seen forcing a bystander to kneel at gunpoint.
Witnesses insist there have been no makes an attempt to arrest the lads and as an alternative they had been shot as they slept. One of many males was being handled for a spinal harm after being paralysed in an Israeli air strike on a cemetery in Jenin in November. A hospital spokesperson mentioned that though the hospital has been attacked many occasions earlier than, this was the primary time an assassination had taken place on the hospital grounds.
Nevertheless, this has occurred elsewhere within the West Financial institution earlier than. In 2015, undercover Israeli particular forces troopers invaded a hospital in Hebron, arrested an injured Palestinian, killed his cousin and threatened hospital employees at gunpoint.
These undercover forces are identified colloquially because the “mustara’bim”, an Arabic phrase that actually means “those who live among Arabs”. On this context, it’s used for Israeli brokers who embed themselves in Palestinian communities or disguise themselves as Palestinians to gather intelligence or conduct operations.
Since 1948, this unit has been made up of brokers, normally from Jewish-Arab backgrounds, who’re skilled to talk Palestinian Arabic, perceive Palestinian customs and gown to mix in. They generally infiltrate protests to create chaos and an environment of paranoia, however additionally they sometimes take part in particular operations just like the one within the Jenin hospital.
In December, a Docs With out Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) report famous that there was a “staggering” improve in assaults towards healthcare providers in Jenin, together with the obstruction of ambulances and tear-gassing of medical amenities. Entry to hospitals has turn into so troublesome that Palestinians within the Jenin refugee camp have needed to set up “trauma stabilisation points” – makeshift clinics the place medical volunteers conduct first help and extreme trauma remedy.
Different areas of the West Financial institution have additionally seen deliberate disruptions to healthcare providers. There was a number of incidents wherein Palestinian ambulances have been prevented from reaching critically wounded individuals and medical employees have been detained for lengthy hours. The rise within the variety of checkpoints and street closures throughout the West Financial institution since October has solely made this worse.
The MSF report particulars what Palestinians have lengthy identified: Removed from remoted incidents, the Israeli regime’s assaults on Palestinian healthcare are systematic and are a part of a wider coverage to disrupt Palestinian entry to medical care and life-saving remedy.
Certainly, even earlier than the genocide, Gaza’s well being system had been in gradual decline because of the Israeli blockade on the strip, which, amongst many issues, severely restricted imports of medical gear and drugs. In consequence, many important and life-saving therapies, comparable to chemotherapy, weren’t obtainable. Palestinians in Gaza had been compelled to use for (and had been usually denied) permits for such life-saving remedy in Jerusalem and elsewhere.
Earlier than the start of the genocide, the well being sector in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Palestine was already in a state of perpetual disaster. Now, the Israeli regime’s focusing on of Palestinian healthcare is much more blatant.
Tlaleng Mofokeng, United Nations particular rapporteur on the precise to well being, mentioned that in Gaza, “the practice of medicine is under attack”. This isn’t an exaggeration as there have been nicely over 600 assaults on medical amenities since October.
In November, Gaza’s principal hospital, al-Shifa, was subjected to a brutal siege, wherein sections of the hospital had been shelled, employees had been kidnapped and interrogated, and gasoline was denied for life-saving equipment.
The Israeli regime claimed that the hospital was sitting on high of a Hamas command centre, a declare that they failed to offer proof for and was broadly disproved even by mainstream media retailers.
After the siege, the World Well being Group visited the location and known as the hospital a “death zone”. Most hospitals in Gaza, together with al-Shifa, have additionally turn into mass graves with makeshift cemeteries being dug inside the grounds of the medical amenities as a result of burying the useless outdoors is just too harmful. In northern Gaza, there aren’t any functioning hospitals left. Within the south, all of the remaining hospitals are underneath intense assault by Israeli floor forces and bombardments.
Beneath worldwide regulation, hospitals and medical amenities are thought of protected areas, and attacking them is taken into account a conflict crime. However this doesn’t matter a lot to the Israeli regime, which has loved a long time of impunity for such crimes. It additionally doesn’t appear to matter a lot to many mainstream media areas, which seldom point out that these assaults are conflict crimes. Certainly their reporting on the Jenin hospital raid fails to say this and fails to say the context of systematic Israeli assaults on Palestinian healthcare.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.