Undercover Israeli troops raided a West Bank hospital and shot dead three Palestinians early Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry said, while the army said the three belonged to a Hamas "terrorist cell".
"This morning three young men were martyred by the bullets of the occupation (Israeli) forces, who stormed the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin and shot them," the health ministry in Ramallah said.
Hospital director Naji Nazzal told AFP that "a group of Israeli forces entered the facility undercover and assassinated the men". They used weapons fitted with silencers, he said.
The army said troops "neutralised" the men who were hiding in the hospital in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa named the three men as Muhammad Jalamnah, Muhammad Ayman Ghazawi and Basel Ayman Ghazawi.
"The operation was carried out at the hospital's rehabilitation ward where Basel Ghazawi had been undergoing treatment," its director said.
The Israeli army charged that Jalamnah was a "Hamas terrorist" hiding in the hospital. Two other "terrorists who were hiding inside the hospital were "neutralised" along with him.
Jalamnah was involved in "significant terrorist activity" and was known for distributing weapons and ammunition for use in shootings, the army added.
"Jalamnah planned to carry out a terror attack in the immediate future and used the hospital as a hiding place and therefore was neutralised."
Source: BSS/AFP