The hospital says the men were “murdered.” Israel says they belong to a Hamas “terror cell.”
Israeli forces have shot dead three Palestinians at a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Israeli army on Tuesday, the killings were carried out by undercover officers while the men slept at Ibn Sina Hospital.
“This morning three young men were martyred by the crew’s bullets [Israeli] Forces stormed the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin and shot them dead,” the Health Ministry in Ramallah said.
The Israeli army said its troops had “neutralized” the men, who were hiding in the hospital and belonged to a Hamas “terror cell.”
“A weapon was found on a wanted person, which was confiscated by the armed forces,” the army statement continued.
It was reported that one of the men was “recently involved in promoting significant terrorist activity and was in hiding in hospital.”
Hospital director Naji Nazzal told AFP that “a group of Israeli forces covertly entered the facility and murdered the men.”
They used weapons with silencers, he added.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa named the three men as Muhammad Jalamnah, Muhammad Ayman Ghazawi and Basel Ayman Ghazawi.
Surveillance camera footage shared online appeared to show about a dozen undercover officers, including three dressed as women and two dressed as medical staff, walking down a hospital corridor with assault rifles.
Hamas said in a statement that the Israeli army's “crimes will not go unanswered,” adding that the killings were a “continuation of the occupation's ongoing crimes against our people from Gaza to Jenin.”
The statement said one of the men was injured and lying in bed when he was killed.
Of the three men, Hamas confirmed that one was among its members and the other was from the Jenin Battalion. The third was also a Palestinian fighter.
The funeral ceremony of the three men was underway at midday as crowds marched through the streets of Jenin to prepare to offer funeral prayers for their later burial at the cemetery in the Jenin refugee camp. Palestinian media published scenes of the funeral.
“Undercover assassins”
Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said medical staff said one of the three Palestinians killed in hospital was being treated for an injury sustained in an earlier army attack months ago.
“This is the first time since the beginning of the war on Gaza that we have seen such an operation by the Israeli army in a civilian medical facility,” he said.
“The Israeli military will surround hospitals and has sometimes been accused of attacking medical facilities from a distance,” our correspondent also said.
He added: “One can only imagine the terror of the patients and staff at the hospital in Jenin. It is just another example of how determined the Israeli army continues to carry out raids against armed resistance fighters in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Al Jazeera's Rory Challands reported from occupied East Jerusalem and said the attackers were disguised as doctors, nurses and even civilians.
“This unit consisted of Israeli police and army personnel. They went to the third floor of the hospital and shot three young Palestinians,” he said.
“It does not appear that there was an attempt to arrest these men. They were killed in their sleep,” our correspondent added.
There were violent clashes around the hospital.
(AlJazeera)
Since the start of Israel's war on Gaza, Israeli forces have carried out daily raids and arrests in the West Bank.
Hundreds of people have been killed and arrested since Hamas' attacks on Israel on October 7, in which about 1,140 people were killed and about 250 captured.
About 100 of the prisoners were returned to Israel as part of a ceasefire agreement last November in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
At least 26,637 people were killed and 65,387 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza.