Undercover Israeli troops raid hospital and ‘kill’ Palestinian

Netanyahu invokes memory of Nazi past over EU labelling

HEBRON, West Bank, Nov 12, (Agencies): Israeli undercover forces raided a hospital in the West Bank on Thursday, shooting dead a Palestinian during an attempt to detain another man suspected of carrying out a stabbing, the Palestinian health ministry and doctors said.

The Israeli army confirmed the raid and shooting but did not have details of the man’s condition. It said the raid was carried out to detain Azzam al-Shalalda, 27, who was suspected of stabbing an Israeli settler two weeks ago in the West Bank.

The director of Hebron’s al-Ahly hospital, Jehad Shawar, told Palestine radio 20-30 men arrived at the clinic in two mini vans at around three o’clock in the morning. They entered with someone in a wheelchair pretending to be pregnant.

CCTV footage from inside the hospital showed a large group of men armed with pistols and rifles, some with beards and others with keffiyeh scarves on their heads, walking through the corridors telling hospital workers to get out of the way. “They held the staff at gunpoint and stormed the room of Shalalda,” Shawar said. Shalalda’s brother Bilal, who was asleep in the room, said he was tied to the bed by the Israeli forces. A cousin, Abdallah, who was in the bathroom, was shot dead when he suddenly entered the room, Shawar said.

“As his cousin exited the bathroom, which was inside the room, they fired five bullets, one bullet in the head, one in the chest and three in his body,” Shawar told the radio station.

“They took Azzam and placed him in the wheelchair they brought the woman in and they exited the room preventing anyone from giving medical aid to the young man lying on the floor.”

Palestinian Health Minister Jawad Awad accused Israeli security forces of “executing” Abdallah al-Shalalda, who he said was escorting a relative inside the hospital.

“The international community must intervene to protect our people from the Israeli killing machine,” he said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared the European Union’s decision to label goods from Israeli settlements to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses.

“The labelling of products of the Jewish state by the European union brings back dark memories, Europe should be ashamed of itself,” he said as he wrapped up a visit to Washington.

“It took an immoral decision... this will not advance peace, it will certainly not advance truth and justice. It’s wrong,” he said in an English-language video clip posted on Facebook.

He drew the same comparison in September when he said that Israelis “remember history and we remember what happened when the products of Jews were labelled in Europe.”

After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they imposed an economic boycott against the country’s Jews, issuing orders and posting signs telling the public not to buy from them.

The EU move is a set of guidelines for labelling products from Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and annexed east Jerusalem as well as the Golan Heights, all occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

The settlements are deemed illegal under international law and are considered a major stumbling block to peace efforts since those in the West Bank and east Jerusalem are built on land Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Palestinian stone throwers shield themselves behind a board during clashes with Israeli security forces (unseen) following a demonstration to demand Israeli authorities the return of the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed during attacks on Israelis, on Nov 10 in the West

Bank town of Hebron. (AFP)