THE ISRAELI DEFENCE FORCES has said it ‘regrets’ killing an unarmed 65-year-old man, who lay asleep on his bed when he was shot in the face and upper body, after a case of mistaken identity.

Amr Qawasme became the fifth Palestinian man to die at the hands of Israeli soldiers after the late-night attack last night, after a botched attempted raid on Hamas operatives in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Haartez reports that Qawasme was asleep when soldiers raided his house, thinking it to be that of a Hamas leader, and brushed past his wife on their way into the bedroom, where shots were fired.

“I was praying when they entered,” his wife Sobheye told Reuters. “I do not know how they opened the door. They put their hand to my mouth and a rifle to my head.”

The BBC reports that the man Israeli forces were actually looking for, a bona fide member of Hamas, lived in the same apartment block, on the floor directly below.

This evening a military statement said the IDF “regrets” the incident; Voice of America quotes a Hamas official as blaming both Israel and the Palestinian Authority for the mix-up.

Syndicated television footage included footage of a bloodstained bed and shell casings. The IDF had previously said its mission was to arrest Hamas officers so as to take them in for questioning.