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Desperate Media Accuse Israel of ‘War Crime’ Over Killing of Terrorists in Hospital Raid
Illustrative: Palestinians run during clashes with Israeli forces amid an Israeli military operation in Jenin, in the West Bank July 3, 2023. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
There is no denying that the CCTV footage is dramatic: a small squad of men and women sporting dubious doctor disguises, sweep through the corridor of a hospital with automatic weapons drawn.
The striking clip of the Israeli special forces inside a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin has now been seen by millions worldwide, after being picked up by the international media, which invariably distorted the incident to suggest Israel’s actions were unlawful.
Here are the facts as we know them:
On Tuesday, January 30, a specialist Arabic-speaking Israeli counterterrorism unit entered the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city that has become synonymous with Palestinian terrorism.
In a “surgical” operation that lasted just 10 minutes from getting into the building and leaving, the team quickly identified their targets: three terrorists named Mohammed Jalamneh, Mohammed Ghazawi, and Basel Ghazawi.
They were all neutralized.
Israeli forces were acting on intelligence that the men were planning an October 7-style massacre on Israeli soil.
Shortly after their deaths, Islamic Jihad claimed two of the terrorists as members, who were brothers, while Hamas confirmed the third was one of its “fighters.”
The three men had deliberately been using the hospital as a base to both plan their attack and hide from Israeli forces.
Media coverage of the IDF targeting 3 terrorists hiding in a West Bank hospital is a bad joke.
Here’s a thread of what we found: https://t.co/duT7ppzOHN pic.twitter.com/SagrrRwngI
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 31, 2024
When the media came to report the incident, however, some of these facts were soon twisted beyond recognition or omitted entirely to, in some cases, suggest Israel had acted unlawfully by killing the three men.
The most outrageous examples of skewing the story came in the form of headlines from The Washington Post, CNN, and the BBC, which all obscured the fact that the Palestinian men were terrorists who were preparing to carry out an imminent attack against Israeli civilians.
The Washington Post’s was the most outrageous, with the publication ignoring that all three had been immediately claimed by terrorist organizations, and instead reporting that Israeli agents “kill[ed] 3 in West Bank hospital,” which implicitly suggested the dead people were innocent patients.
CNN omitted entirely the fact that the men were confirmed as terrorists in a headline that stated Israeli special forces had “infiltrated” the facility to “kill Palestinian men.”
Meanwhile, the BBC referred to the terrorists as “fighters” in a headline, a choice that seemed to glamorize the deceased. In the same article, the hospital’s director, Dr. Naji Nazzal, made the contentious claim that the men were “executed … in cold blood…”
The most outrageous reporting, however, came from the media outlets that baselessly suggested Israel may have violated international law or perpetrated a “war crime” in its killing of three terrorists.
The Economist, for example, asked whether Israel had broken the “laws of war” on the basis that soldiers disguising themselves as doctors may be an act of “perfidy” — a protection invoked under the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Perfidy describes a form of deception in which one side promises to act in good faith with the intention of breaking that promise after their enemy has left themselves vulnerable on the reliance of their enemy’s assurance.
Of course, the real breach of international law should concern three terrorists misusing a hospital as a hiding place, while they planned a large-scale terror attack against Israeli civilians.
ABC News took a similar approach, having interviewed experts who said the raid may have “violated international law”:
It’s a violation of international law to feign protected status, in this case, by dressing up as a doctor or patient, ‘in order to invite the confidence of the adversary and then proceed to kill or injure them,’ Aurel Sari, associate professor of public international law at the University of Exeter, told ABC News. This violates the prohibition to kill or injure the adversary by resorting to perfidy, Sari said.
Two points should be noted in response.
First, Israel’s arrest raids in Jenin do not now — nor have they ever — violated international law. Under the terms of the Oslo agreements, which gave the Palestinian Authority (PA) control in the area of the West Bank in which Jenin is located, the PA was bound to maintain security and combat terrorism.
The PA’s abject failure to combat terrorism emanating from areas under its control gave Israel the right to legally operate in those locations to prevent the commission of attacks.
Second, Israeli forces did not “invite the confidence” of an adversary by dressing as doctors; there is no evidence that the three men acted in the belief that the Israeli forces were actual medical professionals.
The raid on Jenin’s Ibn Sina Hospital may have looked fairly jaw-dropping to observers.
But dramatics are not evidence of war crimes, and certainly don’t mean terrorists are suddenly innocent victims.
The post Desperate Media Accuse Israel of ‘War Crime’ Over Killing of Terrorists in Hospital Raid first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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