Dozens of protesters swarmed the halls of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus Medical Centre on Wednesday morning after news got out that the hospital was treating a member of Hamas’s “Nukhba force”.
The Nukhba terrorists were one of the leading participants in the terror group’s October 7 attack on the western Negev, during which some 1,200 people were murdered, thousands were wounded and 253 were taken as hostages.
Following calls on social media for people to mobilise in protest, Hadassah closed the entrance to its intensive care unit, covering the glass door with an Israeli flag in an attempt to prevent protesters from locating the terrorist.
“I am on my way to Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, which is committing a heinous act and has forgotten the horrible massacre and what these despicable terrorists have done to our daughters and the Israeli people,” tweeted Herzl Hajaj, whose daughter was killed in a 2017 terrorist attack.
“We will not forget and not be silent,” wrote Hajaj, who represents Choosing Life, a forum of Israeli terror victims and bereaved families.
In video footage of the incident, Hajaj can be seen arguing with medical staff and security outside a hospital room, which is guarded by at least two armed soldiers, before being escorted off the premises.
“Is this where the terrorist son of a bitch is hospitalised? Is the terrorist hospitalised here?” he shouts, asking security guards to “take the terrorist out of here, not us.”
Hadassah, in a statement shared with Hebrew media on Wednesday afternoon, noted that “every security prisoner treated in Israeli hospitals is brought [there] under the responsibility and according to a decision of the Ministry of Health, the security forces or the army.
“Hadassah is not informed of the details of the arrest and circumstances of individual detainees and is certainly not involved in the decision [regarding] where they will be treated.”
According to Israel’s Makor Rishon newspaper, some staff members of Hadassah’s intensive care unit initially refused to treat the terrorist. However, the hospital’s director instructed them to provide care.
The Israeli daily claimed that, according to official figures, at least 25 Palestinian terrorists have been treated in Israeli hospitals since October 7, some of which have been treated alongside Israeli soldiers wounded while fighting in the Gaza Strip.
In October, fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club tried to break into the emergency room of Ramat Gan’s Sheba Medical Centre at Tel Hashomer following reports that terrorists were being treated there.
In response to the incident, Israeli Health Minister Moshe Arbel instructed all public hospitals to stop treating Hamas terrorists.
However, in December, a Palestinian terrorist captured by Israeli soldiers in Gaza was admitted to a Petach Tikvah hospital for surgery. The terrorist was reportedly wounded during an exchange of fire.
