Terrorist sympathizers on the Left are shocked — shocked, I tell you! — that Israel won’t respect terrorist hideouts in hospitals in Palestinian territory.
This is not new. We have seen it every day since Hamas murdered (and tortured, raped, and kidnapped) more than 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7. When Israel Defense Forces seek and destroy terrorist facilities and their occupants secreted in medical facilities, schools, and other civilian buildings, they are condemned as a matter of routine for this blameless action in defense of their internationally-recognized sovereign nation.
A particularly daring and pleasing Israeli military operation has just taken place at a hospital in Jenin, in the West Bank. It was a total success and was thus naturally greeted with gossamer-thin denunciations from the usual angry suspects.
Male and female IDF commandos, fluent Arabic speakers in the special Mistaarvim unit, entered the hospital at 5:30 a.m. disguised as doctors, nurses, and patients — closed-circuit TV shows one even carrying a folded wheelchair — went to the room where they knew three terrorists were hiding, shot them dead with silenced pistols, and left the hospital by 5:40. Not a single civilian or commando was injured, and three killers were eliminated.
All in all, an excellent early morning’s work.
Owen Jones, an English commentator who supports a ceasefire leaving Hamas terrorists in charge of Gaza, echoing the official Hamas statement — surprise — condemned the action as “several war crimes.” He is outraged by the “dressing up as medical staff to kill injured and unarmed suspects in a hospital with no judicial process.”
But his own newspaper, the Guardian, reports that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad both claim the three dead terrorists are members of their organizations. So their terrorism is not in doubt, not an empty claim by Israel but a fact acknowledged by their terrorist masters.
So let’s get the Left’s position straight on this. There is no question that the three men killed are military members of organizations that started a war against Israel and are still fighting it. Those organizations are committed to killing Jews and the destruction of Israel. Why exactly should Israel and its commandos not be dedicated to killing those terrorists and the destruction of their organizations? It seems a fair balance of goals, no?
If the terrorists use hospitals as bases for military operations — as they do — if, in other words, they refuse to respect those civilian facilities and instead involve them in their genocidal conflict, how can Israel be expected not to take the battle to them where they lurk?
As noted, the commandos did not kill or injure anyone else in the hospital. Unlike their targets, they took care, as the IDF generally does, not to harm Palestinian civilians, and they were successful in this effort.
So three acknowledged terrorists, who were apparently planning another attack on Israel of the sort perpetrated on Oct. 7, have been eliminated from the fight with no loss of any other life. And it cannot be said that the commandos brought war to the hospital, for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and their genocidal Islamofacist brethren did that long ago. What, exactly, is the Left’s complaint?
Owen Jones says it is partly that there was no “judicial process.” What judicial process does he expect? War is not conducted by each side identifying enemies and then seeking court permission to attack them. What could a court discover in the case of the raid in Jenin? That the people killed were terrorists? Check. That those terrorists were dedicated to genocidal war against Israel? Check. That Israel is a country recognized under international law for the past 75 years and entitled to defend itself? Check. That Israel’s armed forces accepted the challenge thrown at them by illegal Islamist forces designated as terrorists by the world’s civilized nations, and defeated them in this small operation? Check. That the Israelis were in disguise as civilians, rather than in military uniform, which contravenes the rules of war? True, and in being so, the commandos accepted the risk that they would be shot if captured rather than taken as prisoners of war (which is always the case if you are a Jew captured by Islamist terrorists).
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Owen Jones wonders what the reaction would be if Hamas stormed a hospital disguised as doctors, nurses, patients, and civilian women, and speculates that it would be regarded as “evidence of their outrageous evil.” He’s right there, for if Hamas stormed a hospital, it would not simply execute three terrorists, but do what it did on Oct. 7 and slaughter as many innocents as it could find. It has shown that it is not interested in limited or targeted operations, so the comparison is an absurd one.
Finally, Jones speculates that many media outlets will not even cover the Jenin operation. Amazing. He manages to be wrong on everything.