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“AN ACT OF ASSASSINATION”: MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI SLAMS UNDERCOVER
ISRAELI RAID ON WEST BANK JENIN HOSPITAL  
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Interview with Mustafa Barghouti by Democracy Now
January 31, 2024
Democracy Now
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_ The Israeli military claimed the three men it targeted were
involved in planning an imminent attack and were using the hospital as
a hideout, without providing evidence. Hospital officials said the
three men were sleeping. _

A screen grab from a security camera shows what hospital staff
described as Israeli forces in disguise, holding weapons, raiding the
Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, West Bank, on Tuesday,, Reuters

 

In a shocking raid on a hospital in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on
Tuesday, three Palestinians were killed by undercover Israeli
assassins disguised as Muslim women and doctors. Citing no evidence,
the Israeli military claimed the three men it targeted were involved
in planning an imminent attack and were using the hospital as a
hideout. Hospital officials said there was no exchange of fire and
that the three men were asleep. One of the men had been receiving
treatment at the hospital since being injured in an Israeli drone
attack on October 25 and was partially paralyzed. Our guest, Dr.
Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative, decries the
silence of Western governments in the face of the incident’s brazen
and multipronged “violation of international humanitarian law.”
It’s part of an extensive pattern of Israeli impunity on the world
stage, says Barghouti, while “all the condemnation, all the
collective punishment, is directed only at one people: the
Palestinians.”

                                             
        ---------------------------------

AMY GOODMAN: This is _Democracy Now!_, democracynow.org, _The War
and Peace Report_. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Thousands of Palestinians took part in a funeral procession Tuesday in
the occupied West Bank for three Palestinians killed by Israeli
assassins in a shocking undercover raid on a hospital in Jenin.
Surveillance footage from the Ibn Sina Hospital shows around a dozen
undercover Israeli forces storming the hospital, guns raised, wearing
white doctor’s coats or hospital scrubs and dressed as Muslim women
wearing headscarves. One of the undercover troops carried a rifle in
one arm and a folded wheelchair in the other.

The Israeli military claimed the three men it targeted were involved
in planning an imminent attack and were using the hospital as a
hideout, without providing evidence. Hospital officials said there was
no exchange of fire and that the three men were asleep, indicating the
raid was a targeted killing. One of the three men killed had been
receiving treatment at the hospital since being injured in an Israeli
drone attack on October 25th and was partially paralyzed.

This is Naji Nazzal, medical director at Ibn Sina Hospital.

NAJI NAZZAL: [translated] They killed the three youth — Basel and
Mohammed Ghazawi and Mohammed Jalamneh — in their room while they
were sleeping on their beds in the room. They were killed in cold
blood with direct gunshots to the head.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 380
Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7th, while more than 6,300
people have been arrested.

For more, we go to Ramallah, where we’re joined by the Palestinian
physician, activist, politician Mustafa Barghouti. He serves as
general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative.

Welcome back to _Democracy Now!_, Dr. Barghouti. If you can start off
by laying out exactly what you understand about this assault on the
Jenin hospital? Who was killed? Who were these undercover assassins
who moved in dressed as Muslim women in headscarves, dressed as
doctors and hospital staff?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Well, it is clear that those who
assassinated the three Palestinians in the hospital are a Israeli
military group, a special security group that is called the Arabists
here. They usually act and dress as Palestinians in various places,
and this is not the first crime they committed. But, by the way, this
same group was taking photographs with the minister of internal
security, the fascist, Ben-Gvir, recently, and he published that
photo, and he praised them as heroes.

What they’ve done is really unacceptable and represents a very
serious violation of international humanitarian law in four different
issues. First of all, they dressed as doctors, as nurses, as health
professionals. And they put one of them, one of the assassins, on a
wheelchair and dragged him into the hospital. This way, they are
endangering actually all medical personnel, because from now on nobody
will be sure that he’s dealing with a doctor or somebody who’s
disguising as a doctor.

Second, they penetrated the hospital in an illegal manner, very early,
in the very early hours of the morning. And they have no right to
enter the hospital without even notification and without any alarm.
And in principle, they are not allowed to enter the hospital.

Third, they attacked a patient who was handicapped, who was paralyzed,
in his bed, while he was sleeping, and shot him in the head, and shot
two others who were accompanying him in the same room — three
Palestinians — in an act that can only be called as an act of
assassination and illegal execution of Palestinians.

In every aspect of international humanitarian law, they have violated
the law. They are continuing that. They are proud about it. They’re
praising themselves for doing it. And that is all happening because
the world is allowing Israel to be impunitive to international law and
impunitive to any law, as a matter of fact.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Dr. Barghouti, I also wanted to ask you
what’s going — in terms of what’s going on in the West Bank and
East Jerusalem, more than 380 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli
soldiers and civilians, and supposedly there is no Israeli military
activity going on in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But could you
talk about that other war, that the rest of the world is not paying
any attention to?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Yes. Actually, Israel is reoccupying the
whole of the West Bank. I mean, since the 7th of October, not only
they’ve killed 380 people, but more than that. They are allowing
settlers to wander around with guns, and these settlers are behaving
as terrorists, terrorizing Palestinian people. And in addition to
that, the Israeli army has arrested, since the 7th of October, 6,300
Palestinians in the West Bank, including no less than 200 children,
including women. They kidnap people, and they put them in jail without
trial, without any legal process, without even charges. And in
addition to that, they have divided the country in 224 small islands,
with 650 military checkpoints, each of which has become a point of
harassment for people and a very dangerous spot, because Palestinians
could be killed for no reason. And the Palestinian Authority has lost
any authority. Practically, Israel took over all of the West Bank,
although West Bank is not under the government of Hamas, as they claim
and regard in Gaza.

But that’s not the only thing. All these violations happen, and
instead of punishing Israel or blaming Israel for its violations of
international law, we see many Western governments, including United
States of America, punishing the Palestinians. And if you’ll allow
me to speak about that, I think the whole case of UNRWA was used by
Israel to distract attention from the ICJ resolution, which indicted
Israel for a plausible genocide. Instead of punishing Israel, they
took up this case where Israel is claiming that some workers
in UNRWA have been engaging in military actions, without any proof,
without investigation. And then you found 12 European countries and
United States of America and Canada and Japan cut off support to the
only organization that is providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, that is
the only bridge to humanitarian aid in Gaza. We are subjected to
collective punishment. Palestinians, who are the victims of the
Israeli aggression, of the possibility of a genocide, are subjected to
collective punishment by these governments, none of whom have
condemned this Israeli attack on the hospital.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to a clip of the U.S. State Department
spokesperson Matthew Miller at a briefing on Tuesday. He was being
questioned about the Israeli raid on the Jenin hospital by the
Associated Press reporter Matt Lee.

MATT LEE: This operation that the Israelis launched in Jenin, the
hospital today, what — do you have any comment on that? Is this
something that you think is problematic, or is it something that you
look at with envy, like this is some kind of great _Mission:
Impossible_ mission that we wish that we could also do?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, I’d say that we strongly urge caution whenever
operations have the potential to impact civilians and civilian
installations. That, of course, includes hospitals. We do recognize
the very real security challenges Israel faces, and its legitimate
right to defend its people and its territory from terrorism. Israel,
of course, has the right to carry out operations to bring terrorists
to justice, but those operations need to be conducted in full
compliance with international humanitarian law.

MATT LEE: Well, do those operations include going into hospitals and
murdering people in their beds, regardless of whether they’re —

MATTHEW MILLER: So —

MATT LEE: — you know, they are suspected or even known terrorists?
Is that OK with you guys?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, there was a lot in the premise of that question.
Obviously, they — we did know that they went into —

MATT LEE: Well, you don’t think that they went in —

MATTHEW MILLER: We — well, hold on. We —

MATT LEE: — and killed complete — people who were completely
innocent, do you?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, let me say that this —

MATT LEE: Because if you did think that, then you would be
condemning it, right?

MATTHEW MILLER: We certainly would, but I would say that Israel has
said that these were Hamas operatives. They have said that one of them
was carrying a gun at the time of the operation. So, I’m not able to
speak to the facts of the operation. You’d have to pass some kind of
legal judgment, know all of the facts of the operation. But as a
general matter, they do have the right to carry out operations to
bring terrorists to justice, but they need to be conducted in full —

MATT LEE: Including in hospitals?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, we want them to conduct their operations in
compliance with international humanitarian law.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew
Miller being questioned by the AP’s Matt Lee. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti,
if you can respond to what he’s saying specifically here? And also,
overall, then, talk about the attacks in West Bank and Gaza on the
healthcare system, going right to Nasser Hospital, which is the
largest hospital after Al-Shifa. It’s in southern Gaza, and it has
been under siege for the last few days. But start with the
spokesperson.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: There are many things to say here, but let
me start by what he said about the proper legal process. Israelis
should not have entered the hospital. They should not have disguised
as doctors and nurses. This is all violation of international
humanitarian law. But even if they wanted, they could have arrested
these three guys and charged them and give them a due legal process,
instead of executing them on the spot, just on the basis of their
suspicion. What is the legal here? What is the legal system here?
Israel now can say about anybody that he’s a Hamas terrorist or a
terrorist or anything else and then kill him in the street, and nobody
will condemn that. United States of America has no right not to
condemn this action.

And it is unacceptable that they continue to use double standard
because they don’t want to criticize Israel. Why? Because they know
that they are participating with Israel in what could be perceived or
condemned as an act of genocide by supplying Israel with weapons, by
supplying Israel with soldiers even. They’re supplying Israel with
advisers in its terrible attacks on Gaza.

And on the other hand, Gaza — Israel has been continuously
persistent in attacking all hospitals, not only in Gaza, but also in
the West Bank. They have subjected Tulkarem hospitals to attacks.
They’ve subjected Jenin hospitals to attacks. They’ve subjected
hospitals in Nablus to attacks. And they continue to do that in Gaza,
where they’re bombarding the hospitals, bombarding the hospitals,
killing patients, killing doctors, killing nurses. And add to that the
fact that Israel has killed in Gaza, up to now, 304 of our colleagues,
medical doctors, nurses, first aid providers. In addition, they
injured 300 others while they were performing their medical duties.
And they have arrested 90 of these health workers, including the
director of Shifa Hospital, who is subjected now to torture in Israeli
concentration camp in the Negev near Be’er Sheva.

This is the exact behavior of Israel. Do we hear any condemnation from
the United States of America or from the United Kingdom? No. All the
condemnation, all the punishment, all the collective punishment, is
directed only at one people, which are the Palestinian people. We
don’t understand how could these countries that claim that they are
struggling — that they claim they support human rights, they claim
they support democracy, they claim they support international law, and
at the same time not only they are allowing these crimes to happen
against the Palestinians, but they are actually participating in them.

That’s what’s happened in Jenin, like what’s happening now in
Gaza, where, by the way, 32,000 Palestinians have been killed so far,
if we include the 7,000 under the rubble, and more than 65,000 people
have been injured. That is more than 4% of the population of Gaza. Had
this happened in the United States of America, you would be talking
about 12 million people killed or injured in less than three months.
Proportionally, the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza after three
months is more than all Americans killed in all America’s wars since
the 18th century. Is that acceptable? Is that allowable? That is the
question that should be directed to Biden administration and to the
American administration. How could they continue to allow Israel to be
so impunitive to international law? And how could they allow this act
of collective punishment against the Palestinian population when it
comes to UNRWA and other health, humanitarian services?

By the way, the International Court of Justice decided there should be
support to providing humanitarian supplies to Palestinians, and Israel
should be responsible for that. What do we see in reality now in Gaza?
I’ve been talking to our 30 medical teams working there. They say
there is a decline in the amount of support that is coming, in an
unprecedented manner. What they get is absolutely not enough, less
than 100 trucks daily, while what they need is 1,000 trucks daily,
considering the terrible situation. We have people in the north and in
the center of Gaza who are calling us, saying they are starving. They
have no food. They have no medical supplies. Our colleagues have to
operate on people, injured people, without anesthesia. And 600,000
people, according to the World Food Programme now, 600,000
Palestinians now in Gaza are starving. What does the United States of
America do about that? Do they do anything, or just protect Israel and
provide protection for this Israeli aggression?

* West Bank
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* political assassinations
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* IDF
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* Israeli-Palestine conflict
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