Police in Jerusalem arrested 11 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip on suspicion of illegally residing in the Jewish state, the Israel Police said on Thursday.
One of the detained Palestinians is the sister of a Hamas terrorist operative, the statement added.
The arrests were carried out during a raid of the Al-Makassed Hospital on the Mount of Olives, the largest of six Arab hospitals in Israel’s capital.
According to the police, the suspects had been staying in the hospital for weeks without being admitted as patients. The deputy director of the hospital has been summoned for questioning.
Some of the suspects entered Israel with a permit for the purpose of accompanying a person seeking medical treatment, but their permission expired several months ago.
שוטרי מחוז ירושלים ולוחמי מג״ב עצרו היום בבית החולים אל-מקאסד שבמזרח ירושלים 11 תושבי ותושבות רצועת עזה שהסתתרו וישנו במקום. סגן מנהל בית החולים זומן לחקירה בתחנת המשטרה שלם בחשד להלנת שוהים בלתי חוקיים מעזה ומיו״ש בניגוד לחוק pic.twitter.com/gYEaDoaih1
— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) November 2, 2023
The police statement did not say whether the detained persons were involved in Hamas’s Oct. 7 cross-border invasion in which terrorists killed at least 1,400 people and wounded thousands more.
A recent Israel Defense Forces assessment suggests that some 3,000 armed terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, in addition to scores of Gaza residents who crossed the border fence that day.
On Oct. 20, Israeli security forces arrested four Gazans who were hiding in an apartment in Beersheva, approximately 25 miles from the Gaza Strip.
Days earlier, an unarmed Gazan was caught near the Israeli city of Netivot, about eight miles from the Strip, and taken to the local police station for questioning.
