After Gaza, Israeli soldiers are allowed to do anything. Even hide in a Palestinian ambulance
Relatives mourn during the funeral of Palestinian Muhammad Abu Amer, 18, who was killed at night in an Israeli army raid, in the West Bank refugee camp of Balata, Nablus, on 4 January 2025
Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz on 9 January 2025:
Last week, the photographer Alex Levac and I visited the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus to investigate the circumstances of the killing of two innocent civilians in an operation by the army’s undercover counterterrorism Duvdevan unit. One was an 80-year-old woman who was innocently walking down the street. The other was a 25-year-old barber who was sitting at home with his family eating breakfast in the kitchen.
After the operation, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service said that “the commander of Fatah’s military wing, who was killed by the force,” had “Iranian funding, ties with Lebanon and a plan for attacks inside Israel.” What rubbish. The assassinated men are always “planning attacks.” Even the two young children, ages 8 and 10, that the army killed in an airstrike on Wednesday in Tammun were planning attacks.
Eyewitnesses in Balata told us that soldiers got out of a vehicle and started shooting at passersby. And that is how the older woman and the barber were killed.
This week, a field researcher for B’Tselem, Abd al-Karim Sa’adi, sent us a video that cast this dubious assassination operation – this killing in broad daylight in the middle of a crowded refugee camp – in an even worse light. The Duvdevan force arrived at the camp disguised as a medical team, and the soldiers emerged from a Palestinian ambulance.
The video shows the ambulance making its way down a crowded alley, past kiosks and pedestrians. This was in the morning, and the ambulance was new, with Palestinian license plates. Maybe they were stolen, or maybe they were made especially for this assassination operation. Around half a dozen soldiers emerged, to the shock of the people in the street. The video shows them running for their lives.
Thus the IDF is using ambulances for assassination operations. It’s hard to think of a more despicable way of invading a crowded refugee camp one fine morning to kill wanted men, and innocent people as well, than using ambulances. Not only is this cowardly and criminal, but it also endangers every genuine ambulance traveling in the West Bank from now on.
Just as in Tammun on Tuesday, in Balata on December 19 it was also impossible to carry out these operations without killing innocents. But the use of an ambulance by an elite unit takes the IDF’s utter contempt for international law up another notch.
The IDF’s response, only made things worse: “The IDF is committed to international law and operates accordingly.” Blah, blah, blah. “The incident in question will be investigated. The inquiry will examine the use made of the vehicle in the video and the claims that uninvolved civilians were harmed.” More blah, blah, blah. There is barely a single word of truth in that response. The IDF is committed to international law and will examine the use made of the vehicle, without even admitting that the “vehicle” was an ambulance.
Look at those abominable terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. Look at how they hide in hospitals, turn recovery rooms into command posts and delivery rooms into arsenals of missiles. Their brutality knows no bounds: endangering patients like that, scorning international law like that. And look at our purity of arms. There’s nobody purer than us, no army more moral than the IDF.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit will undoubtedly explain that the army’s use of Palestinian ambulances, like its use of drones, is meant to save soldiers’ lives. And why does Hamas hide out in hospitals if not to save its fighters’ lives? What’s the difference between a Palestinian fighter hiding in the basement of a hospital and an Israeli soldier hiding in an ambulance?
“Hey, the jeep, hey the jeep,” went a song written by Haim Hefer in 1948 and performed by the Chizbatron troupe. “Hey, the ambulance,” sang Duvdevan soldiers almost eight decades later on their way to another assassination.
A maqama written by Yossi Ben-Ezra, “My Unit,” appears on a certificate of appreciation I once received from Duvdevan soldiers, in a very different time, after speaking to them. “I will carry your values in all 248 of my organs / and with courage I will embark on all my missions … I won’t ask why and I will carry them out scrupulously,” it says.
Don’t ask why, Duvdevan soldiers. Hide in ambulances and kill an old woman in the street. After Gaza, you’re allowed to do anything. Anything at all.
This article is reproduced in its entirety