The army countered that international law prevents militants from seeking refuge in a hospital. Including yesterday's actions, the army has carried out four hospital raids in the last two months, and officials said there would be more.
Later yesterday, about 4,000 Peace Now demonstrators gathered in front of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Jerusalem residence chanting "Sharon, Go Home" and carrying torches. One banner read "Sharon: Terminator of Israel."
In Gaza, Israeli forces blew up three large, empty buildings in southern Gaza City early today, retaliating for a deadly Palestinian attack on a nearby Jewish settlement. Before the explosions rocked the area and leveled the buildings, Israeli forces evacuated about 2,000 Palestinians from their homes in the area. In the hospital raids, troops arrived in jeeps at about 3 a.m., swept into the hospitals, and confined doctors and other staff to rooms for more than an hour as they kicked open doors in room-to-room searches, witnesses said.
Soldiers entered the intensive care unit of Anglican Hospital and grabbed Khaled Hamed. The 25-year-old Hamas militant was badly injured Wednesday when explosives inside a car he was riding in went off accidentally.
Dr. Annan Abdel Hak said Hamed lost two fingers and suffered bleeding in his brain and light burns.
"I explained to the soldiers how critical his condition is," Hak said. "Then they removed the machines from his body." Hamed was taken in a military ambulance to Beilinson Hospital in central Israel and was in stable condition, a military source said. Hamed had planned suicide bombing attacks, the source said.
Elsewhere in Nablus, troops stormed Rafidiyeh Hospital and arrested an armed member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with links to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. The military said troops found the man, whom Palestinians identified as Jawad Ishtayeh, 27, hiding in the cellar armed with a pistol.
The army said the man was healthy, and Palestinian security sources said the man was not a patient and was apparently using the hospital as a hideout.
An American peace activist switnessed the raid in Rafidiyeh Hospital, where he was recovering from light gunshot wounds to his leg he suffered during stone-throwing clashes Friday.
"Around 3 a.m. I was woken up with a flashlight shining in my face," said Mark Turner, 24, from Boulder, Colo. "I opened my eyes and had an M-16 pointed in my face."
