The Israeli military has admitted that its soldiers hid in an ambulance in order to infiltrate and raid a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank — a move one UN expert has described as a “flagrant violation” of international humanitarian law.
Last month, armed Israeli soldiers drove into the Balata refugee camp in Nablus in an ambulance. Soldiers stormed the camp, killing two Palestinians, including an 80-year-old woman, Palestinian sources reported. Three others were wounded by gunfire. The incident was caught on camera and circulated online this week.
After the video emerged, the Israeli military confirmed that Israeli soldiers used the ambulance to enter the camp and claimed to be investigating the incident, even as it maintained in a statement that the army “acts in accordance with international law.”
Human rights expert Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said that the incident is a war crime.
“Misusing the protected status of medical vehicles and personnel is a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and may constitute a crime of perfidy,” said Albanese. “By systemically disregarding IHL, Israel has rendered the legal frameworks meant to protect civilians, completely meaningless.”
Perfidy is defined under international law as committing an attack or military act while under the cover of a protected act or entity — for instance, disguising soldiers as civilians during an attack to surprise the adversary.
UN experts, including Albanese, and human rights groups have previously accused Israel of perfidy after a June attack in which Israeli soldiers raided Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza while disguised as displaced civilians and aid workers in a humanitarian vehicle. That massacre was one of the deadliest single attacks of the genocide as Israel killed at least 274 Palestinians and injured nearly 700 others in order to retrieve four Israeli captives who were being held in Gaza. Israeli officials hailed the attack as a “surgical operation,” and the White House called it a “daring operation.”
Israel has carried out many attacks in which perfidious tactics were used, reports have found. Last year, for instance, Israeli forces raided a hospital in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, disguised as doctors and other medical staff. Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in that raid.
As it’s carrying out a genocide in Gaza, the Israeli military has been undertaking a brutal invasion of the occupied West Bank. Just on Saturday, also in Balata refugee camp, Israeli forces killed an 18-year-old boy and injured nine others in a raid.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 815 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amid Israel’s intensified military campaign there, Palestinian officials report.
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