Inside Israel's West Bank Hospital Raid — A Textbook Mossad Assassination

-Analysis-

CAIRO — It was a 15-minute covert operation that reminded intelligence experts that Israel is a global master in the field.

Disguised as Arab medics and hijab-covered women, Israeli special forces sneaked into a hospital in the occupied West Bank and killed three Palestinian militants, including one considered a notable Hamas operative. Just as notable as the speedy execution of the raid was the ability of the Israeli spy agency Mossad to track the three militants while all gathered in one hospital room.

Though carrying out a hit inside a hospital raised concerns about potential violation of international humanitarian law, the raid in the conflict-ridden city of Jenin was one of the boldest of the kind of manhunt operations that date back through virtually the entire history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Some Mossad-led operations failed and sparked diplomatic crises, like the poisoning of a Hamas leader in Jordan in the 1990s. However, the record of successful operations in the most difficult of circumstances have won the decades-old nation the admiration of the world intelligence community.

How did it happen?

The Israeli forces sneaked into the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin on Tuesday, before heading to the third floor and assassinating the men, according to the Palestinian state news agency WAFA. The slain were members of the military arms of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movements, which have battled Israel for about four months in Gaza Strip.

Israeli commandos disguised as Arab medics and women in hijabs stormed into the hospital, according to CCTV footage. One commando is seen dressed in a white medical coat and another in blue scrubs. Others are seen pushing a wheelchair and another carrying a baby car seat, the footage released by the Palestinian Health Ministry showed.

They were seen walking through the hospital halls, brandishing their assault weapons, before entering the room where the militants were, and killing them, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The raid is a textbook Mossad operation. It showed the long reach of Israel’s spies who were able to locate the militants and hunt them while sitting together in one hospital room.

Israel might have informants inside the medical facility.

In the hospital raid, Israel’s commandos stormed the facilities while two militants were visiting the third man who was being treated from a wound in his spinal column by shrapnel from an Israeli drone strike on Oct. 25, said Niji Nazzal, the hospital director. He said al-Ghazawi had been paralyzed in the drone explosion.

The timing of the raid shows that the militants’ communications were closely tracked, and that Israel might have informants inside the medical facility.

Along with the traditional methods any spy agency employs, it is believed that the Mossad has greatly benefited from Israel’s advanced technology to pursue the country’s foes, particularly Palestinian militants. It also receives intelligence from the U.S., Israel’s closest ally.

The raid brought to mind several Israeli covert assassinations of Palestinian activists, including the assassination of a Hamas top militant in Dubai in 2010, and an infamous raid that killed three Palestinian leaders in the Lebanese capital of Beirut in early 1970s.

Dubai Hotel Assassination

It took Israel over 20 years to take revenge for the killing of two Israeli soldiers during the first uprising, Intifada, by Hamas militants, led by Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Al-Mabhouh, the chief of logistics and weapons procurement for Hamas’ military arm, Qassam Brigades, was killed by a Mossad hit squad of 27 members in a five-star hotel in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates on Jan. 19, 2010.

The squad entered Dubai with fake British, Irish, French and Australian passports, led by a French passport holder who used the name Peter Elvinger. Most of them were from a Mossad elite unit called "Caesarea," named after the ancient city in Palestine.

Al-Mabhouh had arrived in Dubai one day before his death. According to Dubai police investigations, his assassins tracked him from the airport to his hotel room.

While in Dubai, the hit-squad used cash rather than credit cards for their transactions and almost continuously changed their identities, switching outfits and wearing wigs and glasses as disguises, according to the investigations. They also used international calls to communicate and "special communication devices" to relay encrypted messages during their 19-hour stay in Dubai.

Al-Mabhouh checked in at the Al Bustan Rotana hotel at 3.25 p.m. the day of his arrival. At the time, there were two people wearing tennis outfits standing nearby, according to footage from the reception desk.

The agents, dressed as tennis players, followed al-Mabhouh in the elevator as a hotel staff member led him to his room number 230, Dubai police said.

After he was shown his room and left his luggage, al-Mabhouh went for a walk around the city. He returned around 8.30 p.m. Dubai police suggested that four agents from the hit-squad may have entered the room while al-Mabhouh was out. They ambushed him once he returned.

Israel has never acknowledge that it was behind the assassination.

Verdun Operation

At 1 a.m. April 10, 1973, Israeli naval units covertly came ashore across a beach in the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak reportedly took part in the attack, dressing as an Arab woman.

The hit squad of more than three dozen raiders were disguised in civilian clothing to kill three leaders with the Palestinian Liberation Organization allegedly involved in the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak reportedly took part in the attack, dressing as an Arab woman.

The attack, known in the Arab world as “Verdun Operation,” was part of the “Operation Spring of Youth,” which Israel launched to kill those involved in the Munich attack on Israeli athletes.

The Israeli agents drove in civilian cars with Lebanese license plates towards their targets, heading to Rue Verdun, a peaceful residential area in Beirut.

The attackers burst into one apartment building with their guns blazing and murdered, gangster style, Yussef el-Najjar, known as Abou-Yussef, and his wife, who attempted to shield him from the attackers. El-Najjar was a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

In the same building, they attacked the apartment of Kamal Nasser, a poet and intellectual who acted as the spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and assassinated him as well.

The raiders attacked another apartment in the vicinity where they likewise killed Kamal Adwan, another Palestinian leader. An Italian woman living in the area was killed.

Though Steven Spielberg directed a feature film about the manhunt following the Munich killings, Israel has officially remained silent on this and other targeted assassinations.