Members of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu‘s coalition have called for West Bank Palestinian villages to be “flattened” after a Jewish woman was shot and killed while on the way to a hospital delivery room for the birth of her fourth child.
Doctors were unable to save the life of Tzeela Gez (37) from the northern West Bank settlement of Bruchin but performed a Caesarean section and delivered her baby. The baby was described as being in serious but stable condition. The child’s father, who was driving Ms Gez to the hospital, was lightly hurt.
The shooting took place amid one of the largest Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank in two decades.
Israeli soldiers launched a manhunt for the attacker, sealing off the nearby Palestinian villages. The army said five militants were killed in exchanges of fire in separate incidents in two West Bank villages.
Mr Netanyahu said he was deeply shocked by the attack. “This despicable event reflects exactly the difference between us – those who cherish and bring life, and the despicable terrorists whose life’s goal is to kill us and cut short lives.”
President Yitzhak Herzog said the attack was “a spine-chilling, horrific act of terror that shakes us to the core. At the very moment life was about to begin – life was taken in the most brutal way.”
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionist party, said that the cruelty of the “subhuman” attackers is “inconceivable”.
“Just as we are flattening Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza, we have to flatten the terror hubs in Judea and Samaria,” he said, using a biblical name for the West Bank. “The village of Bruqin near where the attack took place must be like the destroyed neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip.”
Other right-wing coalition members blamed the army for removing occupied West Bank roadblocks that had prevented Palestinian drivers using roads near settlements.
[ Israeli military strikes kill dozens in Gaza as Trump visits regionOpens in new window ]
[ Merz vows to build the strongest army in Europe and revitalise Germany’s fortunesOpens in new window ]
Opposition parliamentarian Ram Ben Barak rejected the calls to flatten Palestinian villages. “Israel’s greatest mistake, for 60 years, is the belief that the violent conflict with the Palestinians can be managed and does not have to be resolved.”
Hamas praised the attack as a “heroic” response to Israel’s “escalating crimes and ongoing aggression against our people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank”.
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023.
Palestinian residents have reported a wave of attacks by armed settlers on Palestinian property, cars and olive groves which rarely results in prosecution by the Israeli police.
About 700,000 settlers live in 160 communities across the West Bank. The settlements are considered illegal by the vast majority of the international community. – Additional reporting: Reuters
