Israel's health minister instructed the country's public hospitals not to treat wounded members of Hamas.

Israeli Health Minister Moshe Arbel urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to instruct all public hospitals to abide by the directive "immediately," according to the Jewish News Syndicate. The reasoning behind the order was that hospitals should focus on treating Israeli civilians and Israeli Defense Forces soldiers.

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"Since the beginning of the fighting, the issue of treating the damned and despicable Hamas terrorists within the public hospitals has piled up a tremendous difficulty on the health system,” Arbel wrote. “In these difficult times, the health system should focus fully on the treatment of the victims of the criminal massacre, IDF soldiers and readiness for the next [attack].”

“The task of securing and treating the cursed and despicable terrorists within the public health system significantly harms these efforts and therefore, under my guidance, the public health system will not treat them,” he added.

Instead, he asked that all wounded Hamas members be treated in the facilities of Israel's Shin Bet Security Agency.

“The director-general of the Ministry of Health spoke with the director-general of the Ministry of Defense to prepare to treat terrorists in the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency] facilities instead of hospitals,” Israel’s Channel 12 News quoted Arbel as saying.

The issue of Hamas members being treated in public hospitals was made evident on Wednesday when an Israeli nationalist group clashed with police outside a Tel Aviv hospital after rumors that three Hamas members were being treated there. The hospital denied that it was treating any members of the group.

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“A number of citizens arrived at the medical center and began to disturb the order, shouting and blatantly disturbing medical staff. The police declared an illegal assembly and began to evict the violators by force,” the Israel Police said in a statement obtained by the Jewish News Syndicate.

Three Israelis were arrested over the disturbance.