JERUSALEM—The pregnant Palestinian woman in a wheelchair being pushed through the entrance of the Hebron hospital at 3 A.M. Thursday by an unusually large contingent of anxious relatives drew scant attention from the staff on duty, accustomed to late night arrivals at the maternity ward.
Within moments, however, the occupant of the wheelchair, an Israeli security man in drag, pulled out a gun as did all the escorts. While some guarded hospital staff downstairs, cautioning them against using their cell phones, others headed to the third floor. In the surgical ward, an officer of the Shin Bet security service identified their prey—a local man named Azzam Izzat Shalaldeh, 20.
Two weeks before, he had allegedly stabbed a middle aged Israeli man whose car had been stoned and had gotten out to examine the damage. The Israeli was moderately injured but was able to get off a shot. The assailant was wounded but managed to escape. The Shin Bet had learned that Shalaldeh was the assailant and that he was recovering in the Alhali Hospital after being operated on.
An attempt to arrest him in a hospital in the heart of Hebron, Hamas’ main bastion in the West Bank, would have involved an elaborate, probably bloody, quasi-military operation. Therefore, the 3 A.M. pregnancy scheme was conceived. The "escort" was made up of Shin Bet operatives, border police, and army special forces to deal with unexpected contingencies. One such was soon encountered.
The wanted man was taken from his bed and placed in the now vacant wheelchair. A relative who was sleeping with him in the room was wakened and tied to his bed. At that point, Shalaldeh’s cousin, Abdallah Azzam Shalaldeh, 27, emerged from the bathroom. According to the Shin Bet, when he attempted to prevent his cousin from being taken he was shot and killed. The raiding party made off with the detained man in the two mini-vans which had brought them. Shalaldeh was taken to a hospital inside Israel, said the Shin Bet.
Describing the incident afterwards, the hospital director, who had witnessed videos of the incident, told Israel Radio that the arrival of the Israelis had aroused no suspicion. "I don’t know if it was a man or a woman (in the wheelchair) but it certainly seemed like a scene that we see in the early hours of the morning with women who come to give birth. They arrested the wounded man and took him out in the same wheelchair."
Although Shalaldeh was a minor figure in Hamas, a security official said on Israel Radio Thursday that the arrest was important because it demonstrated Israel’s determination to get to any person involved in a terrorist attack.
Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft were reported for the second time in two weeks by Syrian sources to have struck at a target near Damascus. Fire and heavy smoke were reported in the area. The target was not identified but in the past Israel has struck at shipments of strategic weaponry, which it said was being transferred by Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The presence of Russian aircraft in Syrian airspace now requires a measure of coordination between the Russians, who are allies of the Damascus regime, and the Israelis. A joint Russian-Israeli committee made up of senior officers has fixed guidelines aimed at avoiding interference with each other’s military activities, including electronic warfare.