TULKAREM: The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank shot dead two women on Sunday, including one who was eight months pregnant, with the military claiming it had hit targets in a raid. Israeli forces launched an operation in the Nur Shams refugee camp, on the outskirts of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, at dawn on Sunday, as part of an ongoing offensive in nearby camps, the military said.
The Palestinian health ministry said 23-year-old Sundus Jamal Muhammad Shalabi was killed in a pre-dawn incident, with her husband Yazan Abu Shola critically injured. The mother-to-be was dead when she arrived at a local hospital, the ministry said. "Medical teams were unable to save the baby's life due to the (Israeli) occupation preventing the transfer of the injured to the hospital," it added. Murad Alyan, a member of the popular committee in the Nur Shams camp, said that the couple "were trying to leave the camp before the occupation forces advanced into it. They were shot while they were inside their car."
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned what it described as "a crime of execution committed by the occupation forces", accusing Israeli forces of "deliberately targeting defenceless civilians". The health ministry later said a second woman, 21-year-old Rahaf Fouad Abdullah al Ashqar was killed in a separate incident in Nur Shams. A source in the camp's popular committee said she was killed and her father wounded when the "Israeli forces used explosives to open the door of their family house".
Footage from Nur Shams showed army bulldozers clearing a path in front of what appeared to be empty buildings in the densely packed camp, which is home to about 13,000 people. The Israeli military earlier said its forces were "expanding the operation in northern Samaria", using the biblical term for the north of the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. "The combat team of the Ephraim Brigade began operations in Nur Shams," the military said in a statement, adding that soldiers had "targeted several fighters and arrested additional individuals in the area".
The Palestinian health ministry has said at least 70 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank this year. Violence there has escalated since the October 2023 outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, which is separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory. According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 886 Palestinians including militants have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza war began. At least 32 Israelis, including some soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or confrontations during Israeli operations in the West Bank over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.
Meanwhile, a Hamas official said Israeli troops completed their withdrawal on Sunday from a strategic road cutting through the Gaza Strip, part of a fragile truce deal that Israel said it was implementing. "Israeli forces have dismantled their positions and military posts and completely withdrawn their tanks from the Netzarim Corridor on Salaheddin Road, allowing vehicles to pass freely in both directions," an official from the Gaza interior ministry said. Journalists saw no troops in the area on Sunday as cars, buses, pickup trucks and donkey carts travelled along the road from both the north and south, crossing the Netzarim Corridor where an Israeli checkpoint used to stand. According to a senior Hamas official, the Israeli withdrawal from Netzarim had been scheduled for Sunday under the terms of a truce that took effect on January 19 after more than 15 months of war. — AFP
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