An Israeli woman on the way to birth is killed in an attack in the West Bank

Tel Aviv, Israel (AP) – Tzeela GEZ was on the way to the hospital to bring new life into this world when her was suddenly broken off.

When her husband drove her car through the winding streets of the occupied West Bank in the late Wednesday, a Palestinian attacker shot her on her. Within a few hours, GEZ, nine months pregnant, was dead. Doctors hardly saved the baby's life, which is in a serious but stable condition.

Israel says A monthly procedure On West Bank militant who tightened at the beginning of this year. But the escalating offensive, which has killed hundreds of Palestinians for over 19 months, Repressed tens of thousands And caused widespread destruction, ultimately triggered no attacks.

And the latest bloodshed is probably only a circulation of violence that has been pending between Israelis and Palestinians for decades. Israel has undertaken to find the attacker who fled the scene, and the military chief of the chief of staff, who visited the area on Thursday, told the troops that the wider operation would continue alongside the search.

“We will use all the tools available to us and reach the murderers in order to account for them,” said Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, according to a statement by the military, who stood out to have sealed the Palestinian villages in the area of ​​attack and setting up control points.

The shootout, especially because the victim was a pregnant mother with three other children, has the potential Violence in ignition vigilants ignite against Palestinians through radical Jewish settlers. She Palestinian cities and villages storm regularlyBurning and damage to property in response to such attacks. Marauding settlers are rarely recorded to take their actions into account, and the Palestinians have to accept the destruction pieces with little recourse to the compensation or support of the Israeli authorities.

“A mother in her essence”

GEZ, 37, and her husband Hananel were residents of Bruchin, a settlement of around 2,900 in northern western Bank. She worked as a therapist and shared developments in her professional life on her Facebook page and in her thoughts on the war in Gaza, the fallen Israeli soldiers and the hostages still held by Hamas. Meital Ben Yosef, head of the local council of the settlement, told the Israeli army radio that GEZ was “all mother. A mother in her being”.

“A few parents drove to the happiest moment that a parent can experience and the woman is killed on the way. It is a terrible incident,” she said.

Photos of the car published by the military showed a bullet hole on the passenger side of the windshield and a strip of blood on a back door. After the attack, soldiers searched the robust brush on the sides of the street after the attack, according to the video published by the Israeli military.

Abu Obeida, spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, praised the attack on Wednesday as “heroic”, but stopped that the militant group was behind it.

On Thursday, the military control points slowed down the traffic on streets near the attack, and many Palestinian drivers were standing standing as they tried to take their trips, according to Video, which was shared on social media.

Concern for rep. Attacks

The attack triggered outrage and demanded revenge.

“Just as we flattened Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza, we have to flatten the nests of terror in Judea and Samaria,” wrote the Israeli finance minister and a settler fire fire Smotrich in a post that relates to the western bank due to his biblical name.

Violence in the West Bank escalated when the war in Gaza broke out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, attacked South Israel. Israel has carried out frequent raids in the territory, in particular, but not limited to his north, using soil and air power in violence, in which many militants, but also other Palestinians were killed.

On Thursday, the Israeli military announced that its armed forces had killed five militants in an attack that did not seem to do with GEZ 'killing. Hamas mourned for the men as “resistance”, but stopped saying them as a fighter.

In the Middle East of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank together with Gaza and East Jerusalem, all areas that the Palestinians are looking for for a future independent state. Around 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in about 130 settlements that are scattered across the west bank.

Much of the international community sees settlements as illegal and an obstacle to the Palestinian statehood. Israel sees the West Bank as a biblical core country and believes that the fate of the settlements should be defined in peace negotiations that have been shut down for around 15 years.

According to Israel, a large part of the Palestinian militia in the West Bank is fueled by Iran and looks at the fights there as part of its ongoing multi-front wars to secure its limits and prevent an attack in 7-style style in October second.

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Associated Press Writers Jalal Bwaitel in Ramallah, West Bank and Sally Abou Aljoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

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