It’s a Fauda episode played out in real life. A raid on a hospital in the West Bank was surely carried out by a Duvdevan unit, tasked with undercover snatch operations and targeted killings in urban areas, during which they wear Arab civilian clothes as a disguise. Unit members are often of Arab descent and speak the language fluently.
Israeli forces have killed three members of Palestinian armed groups in a hospital in the occupied West Bank.
CCTV footage showed members of an undercover unit disguised as medics and other civilians making their way through a corridor with rifles raised.
The Israeli military said the men were hiding in the Jenin hospital, and that one was about to carry out an attack.
The Palestinian Authority’s ministry of health accused Israel of carrying out a “new massacre inside hospitals”.
Hamas, an armed Palestinian Islamist group which is fighting a war with Israel in Gaza triggered by its unprecedented attacks on Israel on 7 October, said the Israeli forces had “executed three fighters”, including one of its members.
Another armed group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said two of those killed were its members and were brothers. It added that one of them had been receiving treatment at the hospital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEsCzu-jegQ
If you haven’t delved into Fauda on Netflix, it’s worth a binge — and more resonant now than ever. As I noted in a previous post:
With my focus on Continuity & Persistence and the “global frontier,” it is fascinating to see the dynamics of an intractable frontier conflict played out in a contemporary setting.
This type of counter-terrorist operation is an iteration of the pseudo ops we’ve been exploring lately — where disguise and infiltration is the means by which operators penetrate and take out terrorist units. Call it assassination, or targeted killing — it’s direct and personal action, and subject to error and abuse. But when it works against the people it’s supposed to work against, it’s an impressive thing.
David Wrolson says
I recently watched “Exodus” the movie based on Leon Uris’s book about the founding of Israel. This is set circa 1946 when Israel was being born and the Jews were killing British soldiers.
Interestingly, Ari ben Canaan (Paul Newman’s character) -per Youtube research is often cited in surveys and such as the most important (or representative-or whatever) Israeli, even though he is fictional.
And as any fellow fans of George MacDonald Fraser will recognize from one of his stories in Private McAuslin, he was there for a minor part in Israel’s birth.
He was Officer-in-Charge of a train that kind of came under an attack by Jewish terrorists (circa 1946 or 1947).
Speaking of Leon Uris-His book “Battle Cry” on the Marines in WW2 is one of my all-time favorite book and was probably on the first adult books that I read.
JimC says
My mother was obsessed with Trinity, Uris’ novel of Irelands independence struggle from the 1840s to the Easter Rising.
John Maddox Roberts says
There seem to be accusations that the Israelis committed a war crime by disguising themselves as medical staff, and should be tried in the World Court or some such. I doubt the Israelis are very concerned about this.
JimC says
Absurd.
Ugly Hombre says
The Hamas holes hollering about Israel being brutal is a bit much. When you fly into a music festival like flying monkeys rape, murder torture and kill. Kidnap women and children and return to your holes with the bodies of dead women laying in the bed of your trucks.
Maybe the use of a mirror would be appropriate.
lane batot says
When one’s own side perpetrates such ruses, they are clever and imaginative! But when one’s enemies do so, they are treacherous and deceitful!
JimC says
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell, ain’t it.