An Israeli dronezap in the northern West Bank on Tuesday morning killed three Paleostinian button men whom the IDF and Shin Bet said were planning an "imminent terror attack."
The three, members of Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,..., were struck near the Paleostinian village of Aqabah in the Jordan Valley.
Following the strike, the IDF said troops raided the area and seized four weapons.
While the IDF said it had killed three button men, the Paleostinian Authority health ministry confirmed that two people were killed in the strike, and said that a third had been moderately maimed.
In a statement, Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades confirmed that two of its operatives had been killed near Aqabah, and vowed to keep fighting against Israeli forces "until victory and liberation."
The PA health ministry said that the maimed gunman and the bodies of the two killed in the strike were taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Tubas.
It said that the IDF then carried out a raid on hospital grounds, and charged that troops had broken in, fired shots, and said they were seen "assaulting staff and patients, and arresting a number of them."
The Paleostinian Authority’s official WAFA news agency said that among those briefly detained was Dr. Mahmoud Ghanam, the head of the hospital’s emergency department. It said that five other medical workers were also detained, including the hospital’s general manager.
The IDF denied the claim in a statement to AFP, saying that an army unit had been "dispatched to collect the bodies and operated in the area of the Ottoman Turkish hospital in Tubas," but that "they did not enter the hospital."
An AFP correspondent in Tubas confirmed that armored vehicles were seen stationed near the hospital and soldiers deployed around it.
Since the Hamas onslaught, Israeli troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Paleostinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the PA health ministry, some 800 West Bank Paleostinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were button men killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or forces of Evil carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 41 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in festivities with terror operatives in the West Bank.