.“about 10 members of Israeli special forces dressed in civilian clothes went to the third floor [of the hospital], where they killed the men using weapons fitted with silencers”
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) January 30, 2024
In any other country, we’d call this a government death squad.
Sheesh. https://t.co/q8yYUBOqSg
The raid was carried out by soldiers in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, upon a suspected Hamas terrorist cell which the IDF reportedly expected "to carry out a terror attack in the immediate period."
There are thousands of tweets from Hasan and others condemning the Israeli Defense Forces for air strikes which kill many civilians- indiscriminately, in the warped mind of many- in Israel's fight against Hamas. Obviously, an air strike would have been ridiculous in this situation and a targeted operation was the only viable alternative- yet, even this is denounced.
It also should bring to mind a celebrated occasion in recent American history. Exactly four years after the assassination on May 1, 2011 of Osama bin Laden by Seal Team 6, Robert O'Neill reminisced at the 9/11 Memorial Museum:
A foot and a half in front of me was Osama bin Laden. And I shot him twice, and then once more. And it didn’t really sink in; the wife sort of came at me and there was like, two-year-old kid there. So I pulled her over to the bed and grabbed the kid. And I remember thinking to grab the kid because he had nothing to do with this. I don’t want him to be afraid. So I picked him up, put him with the wife. I turned around, other SEALs were coming in the room, and I kind of stopped there and looked at them
. … [One of the SEALs] was looking at me, and said ‘Are you OK?’ I said ‘What do we do now?’ And he laughed and put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, ‘Now we go find the computers.
And I shot him twice, and then once more. It wasn't as humane as taking him prisoner, just as killing those three suspected Hamas terrorists wasn't the most humane approach by the Israeli soldiers. Seal Team 6 was so popular, respected, and unquestioned that a movie celebrating the liquidation of Osama bin Laden was made. And no one flinched.
This is not Red Coats vs. Patriots in the American Revolutionary War, trench warfare of World War I, nor a World War II of Normandy and other invasions of one nation by another. In the Middle East, an attack can come from anywhere at anytime against anyone, civilian or combatant. Israel did not make the rules, does not like the rules, but must play by the rules. This is a very dangerous neighborhood, and Israel did not make up the rules. That is what it did at the hospital in Jenin and at times, it has no choice.
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