IDF May Have Violated International Law in Palestine's Jenin Hospital Raid Disguising as Doctors, Civilians

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Israel Defense Forces,  or IDF, may have violated international law in the raid they conducted inside a hospital in the West Bank that killed three Palestinian men, several experts told ABC News on Wednesday, Jan. 31.

Members of the IDF disguised themselves as doctors and patients to infiltrate the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin on Monday and killed three Palestinian men, Dr. Wisam Sebehat, general director of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Jenin, told ABC News.

Doctors and patients are granted "protected status" in armed conflict under the Geneva Convention.

The experts cautioned that ultimately the International Criminal Court is the body that can determine if international law was violated during the raid. However, they pointed to elements of the Rome Statute and the rules of customary international humanitarian law that the IDF may have violated. 

The ICC is different from the International Court of Justice, which issued a preliminary ruling last week in a genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. 

The ICC can "exercise jurisdiction" in the form of preliminary examination, investigation, and, at times, ultimately trials, over "genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes," the Council of Foreign Relations says.

Israel is not a member of the ICC and rejects the court's jurisdiction, but the ICC prosecutor has investigated Israel's actions toward Palestinians before.

“It's a violation of international law to feign protected status, in this case, by dressing up as a doctor or patient, in order to invite the confidence of the adversary and then proceed to kill or injure them," Aurel Sari, associate professor of public international law at the University of Exeter, told ABC News. This violates the prohibition to kill or injure the adversary by resorting to perfidy, Sari said.

"The rule is part of customary international law in both international and non-international armed conflicts, which means Israel is bound by it," Sari said.

"Based on what has been reported, it appears that the Israeli forces involved in the operation in the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin did resort to perfidy in violation of the law of armed conflict," Sari added.

The other possible violation of international law the IDF may have committed in this case is violating the prohibition on attacking combatants who have been incapacitated by wounds or sickness, or attacking persons "hors de combat," associate professor of international law Tom Dannenbaum told ABC News.

One of the Palestinian men who was killed, Basel Ghazawi, was a patient in the Ibn Sina Hospital and was paralyzed, Sebehat said. 

The IDF denied the reports that Ghazawi was paralyzed.

Ghazawi had been in the hospital undergoing treatment for three months. He was injured after a drone attack in Jenin in October. His older brother, Muhammad Ghazawi, and their friend, Muhammed Jalamneh, were in the hospital room with Basel Ghazawi when all three were killed by the IDF, according to Sebehat.

"Clearly, someone who is paralyzed is incapacitated in that respect, so an attack on that individual would be prohibited. Violating that prohibition would be a war crime," Dannenbaum said.

The IDF accused Jalamneh of transferring weapons and ammunition "to terrorists”, IDF said in a statement about the raid. The IDF did not specify why the two other men were killed but said all three men were Hamas operatives.

In the Gaza Strip, more than 26,000 people have been killed as a result of Israeli bombardments, and over 65,000 others injured since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israeli officials say 556 Israel Defense Forces soldiers have been killed, including 221 since the ground operations in Gaza began.

ABC NEWS

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