Israeli Forces Admit Using Ambulance to Infiltrate West Bank Camp
Occupied West Bank (Quds News Network)- The Israeli military admitted on Monday that its forces used an ambulance to infiltrate the Balata refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus in December. The raid led to the killing of two Palestinians, including an elderly woman.
The military said the investigation “will examine the use of the vehicles seen in the video and the allegations of harm to uninvolved [civilians] during the exchange of fire between the terrorists and our forces,” The Times of Israel reported.
“The IDF is committed and acts in accordance with international law,” the military claimed.
Surveillance footage captures the moment in December 19 when Israeli special forces infiltrated the Balata refugee camp, using an ambulance as cover. The December 19 raid resulted in the killing of two Palestinians, including a 80-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man.
🚨Israel confirms the IDF used an ambulance to smuggle soldiers into a Palestinian refugee camp, where they killed an elderly woman & a young man.
Not a single mainstream media covered this clear war crime of perfidy committed in broad daylight! pic.twitter.com/EcjKkRXKEB
— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) January 6, 2025
Nicola Perugini, a professor of international relations at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said the Israeli move came as its military accuses Hamas of using medical facilities for military purposes in Gaza.
“The Israeli army hiding in an ambulance to carry out an operation in Balata refugee camp, Nablus. The same army that destroyed Gaza’s hospitals based on the fabricated accusation that they are a network of military command centres,” Perugini said in a post on X.
The Israeli army hiding in an ambulance to carry out an operation in Balata refugee camp, Nablus. The same army that destroyed Gaza’s hospitals based on the fabricated accusation that they are a network of military command centres. pic.twitter.com/HCDIRkPMfY
— Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) January 5, 2025
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for Palestine, also condemned the Israeli action.
“Misusing the protected status of medical vehicles and personnel is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and may constitute a crime of perfidy.”
“By systemically disregarding IHL [international humanitarian law], Israel has rendered the legal frameworks meant to protect civilians, completely meaningless,” she wrote on X.
Misusing the protected status of medical vehicles and personnel is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and may constitute a crime of perfidy. By systemically disregarding IHL, Israel has rendered the legal frameworks meant to protect civilians, completely meaningless.… https://t.co/KXqYnqmRPT
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) January 5, 2025
This is not the first time Israeli special forces have infiltrated a West Bank city or camp while disguised, using civilian vehicles or ambulances.
In January 2024, Israeli special forces dressed in civilian clothing and doctors infiltrated the West Bank’s Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin with assault weapons and killed three Palestinians.
The Israeli military has repeatedly justified operations against medical facilities in Gaza with claims that they were being used by Hamas.
However, the top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Andrew Cayley, who is leading the Palestine investigation said in December that claims about the presence of Hamas fighters in hospitals in Gaza under siege by Israel’s military have been “grossly exaggerated”.
According to the latest figures published by the World Health Organization (WHO), of the 35 hospitals in Gaza it has evaluated only 17 are described as “partially functioning”. Five are “fully damaged” and 13 are categorised as “non-functional”.
Cayley said the ICC faced “great difficulty assessing” the level of Hamas fighters presence in hospitals “because clearly there are lies being spoken, but that is really something we do need to get to the bottom of as a prosecution office”.
He added: “I think that has been grossly exaggerated, but we need to be able to demonstrate very clearly what the level of military presence was, if at all, in these hospitals because I think we’ve been misled about that in the press.”
