A group of armed Israeli forces disguised as women and medical workers killed three Palestinian terrorists inside a hospital in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it “neutralized” a Hamas terrorist cell that was hiding inside the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank and planning to carry out a terror attack.

Dramatic CCTV footage shows about a dozen undercover forces making their way through a hospital corridor with guns raised. Most of them are armed, dressed as women with Muslim headscarves or hospital staff in scrubs or white doctor’s coats. One in a surgical mask carried a rifle in one arm and a folded wheelchair in the other.

Dramatic CCTV footage shows about a dozen undercover forces making their way through a hospital corridor with guns raised. (Reuters)

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces opened fire inside the wards. The ministry condemned the raid and called on the international community to pressure Israel’s military to halt such operations in hospitals, according to The AP.

Hospital spokesperson Tawfiq al-Shobaki said there was no exchange of fire, and the three were killed by Israeli forces in a targeted killing. He said the Israelis attacked doctors, nurses and hospital security during the raid.

“What happened is a precedent,” he said. “There was never an assassination inside a hospital. There were arrests and assaults, but not an assassination.”

Israel has come under heavy criticism for its raids on hospitals in Gaza, which have acted as a shelter for displaced people and also as a critical yet struggling lifeline for the tens of thousands of Palestinians wounded in the war. 

Israel says terrorists use hospitals, especially in Gaza, to hide out or to launch operations. The military has found underground tunnels in the vicinity of hospitals and says it has located weapons and vehicles used in the Oct. 7 attack on hospital grounds.

A staff member at Ibn Sina Hospital displays a blood-stained pillow following a deadly Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

The IDF said its forces will continue to act against “any threat that would endanger the security of Israeli civilians.” 

“For a long time, wanted suspects have been hiding in hospitals and using them as a base for planning terrorist activities and carrying out terror attacks, while they assume that the exploitation of hospitals will serve as protection against counterterrorism activities of Israeli security forces,” an IDF statement reads.

“This is another example of the cynical use of civilian areas and hospitals as shelters and human shields by terrorist organizations.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.