Latest news with #Bruchin
Reuters
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Israeli settlers raid West Bank village close to where pregnant woman killed
BRUQIN, West Bank, May 23 (Reuters) - Israeli settlers torched Palestinian vehicles and houses in the occupied West Bank, Israel's army and villagers said, the latest in a series of attacks on the village of Bruqin, close to the location where a pregnant settler was killed this month. Palestinian residents in Bruqin, who say they have faced constant attacks and abuse from Israeli settlers nearby, said a large group had shown up during the night, throwing Molotov cocktails and beating anyone in their way. Akram Sabra, a resident of the village, said he had left his home to watch as dozens, possibly a hundred, people burned cars belonging to him and his family and threw a Molotov cocktail incendiary at his son's house. "I saw my vehicles were burned and then they beat me on the head and I am still dizzy," he said. The Israeli military said it had received a report on Thursday that Israeli civilians had vandalised property in the area of the village, in the northern part of the West Bank. "Upon receiving the report, IDF (Israel Defence Force) soldiers were dispatched to the scene. The suspects fled prior to the arrival of IDF soldiers," it said, adding that no injuries were reported and the incident was under review. Israeli forces have imposed a strict lockdown in and around Bruqin following the killing of Tzeela Gez, a heavily pregnant resident of the nearby settlement of Bruchin. The Israeli military said this week troops searching the area near Bruqin had killed her attacker, who it said had previously served a prison sentence for being a member of the militant group Hamas, and arrested several others suspected of helping with the attack. Since the killing of Gez, Palestinians have reported multiple attacks in the area by settlers who have burned cars, thrown stones and incendiary devices at houses and bulldozed land belonging to Palestinians. "They come at us almost on a daily basis, even sometimes several times a day," said Mustafa Khater, 45, another Bruqin resident. "They attack us with stones and abuse." The United Nations humanitarian organization OCHA said more than 11,000 Palestinians in Bruqin and Kafr ad Dik towns were blocked in, with 28 attacks by settlers resulting in injury or property damage reported in the week to May 19. In all, it said there were 1,449 attacks last year, the highest level in more than 20 years. Settler attacks against Palestinian villages in the West Bank have intensified sharply since the start of the Gaza war, as new settlement building has accelerated under the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The latest attacks took place as the Israeli military has been conducting its largest operation in the West Bank since the Second Intifada, or uprising two decades ago. The operation, which has focused on refugee camps in volatile northern cities including Jenin and Tulkarm, has displaced more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to United Nations figures, and added to fears among many Palestinians of a wider drive towards a full Israeli takeover of the West Bank. Several leading ministers in Netanyahu's government, including the pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have called openly for the annexation of the West Bank and the displacement of large sections of the Palestinian population. The West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, was seized by Israeli forces in the 1967 Middle East war and been under military occupation ever since. Most countries consider settlements to be illegal under international law. Israel disputes that, citing historical and Biblical connections of the Jewish people to the area.
Arab News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Israeli army said ‘eliminated' attacker who killed pregnant woman
JERUSALEM: Israel's military announced Wednesday it 'eliminated' the perpetrator of an attack that left one pregnant woman dead in the occupied West Bank last week. In a joint statement with Israel's internal security agency and the police, the army said that its forces were approached by an armed man in the West Bank town of Bruqin Saturday, near the site of last week's attack. They said the man was 'running toward the forces while holding a backpack suspected to be rigged with explosives, shouting at them,' as they were conducting search operations. An intelligence assessment said that 'Nael Samara, the terrorist who was eliminated, was the terrorist who carried out the shooting attack adjacent to Bruchin on Thursday, May 14, 2025, in which a pregnant woman, Tzeela Gez, was murdered.' A resident of the Israeli settlement of Bruchin, 37-year-old Tzeela Gez died after she was shot in her vehicle as she headed to the hospital to give birth. Her baby was delivered by C-section, but was still in serious condition Tuesday, according to the father. 'We will catch the killers as we always do, we will fight them and we will defeat them,' Netanyahu said in a video released by his office later that day. Israeli army chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had earlier said 'we will use all the tools at our disposal and reach the murderers in order to hold them accountable.' Since the beginning of the Gaza war, sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the West Bank has seen a surge in violence. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law.
New York Times
15-05-2025
- New York Times
Hamas Celebrates Death of Israeli Mother Gunned Down en Route to Deliver Baby
An Israeli woman, on the way to a hospital to give birth, was shot and killed in the West Bank on Wednesday in an attack applauded by Hamas as a 'heroic operation.' The woman's baby, a boy, survived after being delivered in an emergency cesarean section, Israeli health officials said, and remains in 'serious but stable' condition. No Palestinian militant group took immediate responsibility for the attack, but a Hamas spokesman praised the shooting in a statement. Israeli officials described it as an act of terrorism and said they had started a search for the killer. The shooting came amid heightened violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where 500,000 Israelis live in settlements alongside about three million Palestinians. In recent months, Israeli forces have sharply escalated raids targeting militant groups in some Palestinian cities. In the process, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, and tens of thousands have been displaced. The recent fighting has further exacerbated long-simmering tensions between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank. The slain woman, Tzeela Gez, 30, a therapist and mother of three other children, set out from her home in the Israeli settlement of Bruchin on Wednesday night, ready to deliver. As she and her husband drove to the hospital, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on their car, according to the Israeli military. Ms. Gez was fatally wounded. Her husband, Hananel, who was driving, was injured. Still conscious when paramedics arrived at the scene, Mr. Gez told them that his wife was about to give birth, according to Dr. Asnat Walfisch, the director of the women's hospital at Beilinson Hospital in central Israel. Ms. Gez arrived in the operating room of Beilinson Hospital about half an hour after the shooting, Dr. Walfisch said, and less than 60 seconds later, doctors had sliced open her abdomen and removed the child. 'The emergency removal of the child improves the chances of survival for both patients — for the woman as well as for the child,' said Dr. Walfisch. The child was in the neonatal intensive care unit at an affiliated pediatric hospital, the Schneider Children's Medical Center. Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that is fighting Israel in Gaza, praised Ms. Gez's shooting as a 'heroic operation' that 'proves there will be no security for the Zionist pillager on our land.' The group did not say whether one of its fighters was responsible. Israel occupied the West Bank in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, all territories the Palestinians seek for a future state. About 500,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements, which much of the world considers illegal. Following Ms. Gez's killing, the Israeli military said it had locked down Palestinian villages near the intersection where the attack took place. After the attack, far-right Israeli politicians called for even more intense action against Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Bezalel Smotrich, a hard-line minister and settler leader, issued a call to 'flatten the nests of terror' in the West Bank.
Irish Times
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Israeli finance minister calls for Palestinian villages to be ‘flattened' after pregnant woman shot dead in West Bank
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. READ MORE 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 region Opens in new window ] [ Merz vows to build the strongest army in Europe and revitalise Germany's fortunes Opens 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
CTV News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
An Israeli woman on her way to give birth was killed in a West Bank attack
Israeli settlers look towards their neighboring village the morning after a Palestinian gunman shooting killed Tzeela Gez, who was on her way to the hospital to give birth, outside of the West Bank settlement of Bruchin, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) TEL AVIV, Israel — Tzeela Gez was on her way to the hospital to bring new life into this world when hers was suddenly cut short. As her husband drove their car through the winding roads of the occupied West Bank late Wednesday, a Palestinian attacker shot at them. Within hours, Gez, nine months pregnant, was dead. Doctors barely saved the life of the baby, who is in serious but stable condition. Israel says it is trying to prevent such attacks by waging a monthslong crackdown on West Bank militants that intensified earlier this year. But the escalating offensive, which has killed hundreds of Palestinians over 19 months, displaced tens of thousands and caused widespread destruction, has ultimately not snuffed out attacks. And the latest bloodshed is only likely to fuel a cycle of violence that has persisted for decades between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has pledged to find the attacker, who fled the scene, and the military chief of staff, who visited the area Thursday, told troops that the broader operation would continue alongside the manhunt. 'We will use all the tools at our disposal and reach the murderers in order to hold them accountable,' Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said, according to a statement from the military, which said it had sealed Palestinian villages in the area of the attack and set up checkpoints. The shooting, especially because the victim was a pregnant mother with three other children, has the potential to ignite vigilante violence against Palestinians by radical Jewish settlers. They regularly storm Palestinian towns and villages, burning and damaging property, in response to such attacks. Marauding settlers are rarely held to account for their actions and Palestinians are left to pick up the pieces of the destruction with little recourse to compensation or assistance from Israeli authorities. 'A mother in her essence' Gez, 37, and her husband Hananel, were residents of Bruchin, a settlement of some 2,900 in the northern West Bank. She worked as a therapist and on her Facebook page, shared developments in her professional life as well as her thoughts on the war in Gaza, the fallen Israeli soldiers and the hostages still held by Hamas. Meital Ben Yosef, head of the settlement's local council, told Israeli Army radio that Gez was 'all mother. A mother in her essence.' 'A couple of parents were driving to the happiest moment that a parent can experience and the wife is killed on the way. It's a horrific incident,' she said. Photos of the car released by the military showed a bullet hole on the passenger side of the windshield and a streak of blood on a back door. Soldiers searched the rugged brush on the sides of the road following the attack, according to video released by the Israeli military. Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, praised the attack as 'heroic' in a video statement Wednesday but stopped short of saying the militant group was behind it. On Thursday, military checkpoints slowed down traffic on roads in the vicinity of the attack, and many Palestinian motorists were at a standstill as they tried to make their journeys, according to video shared on social media. Concern about reprisal attacks The attack sparked outrage and calls for revenge. 'Just as we are flattening Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza, we must flatten the nests of terror in Judea and Samaria,' wrote the Israeli finance minister and a settler firebrand, Bezalel Smotrich, in a post on X, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name. The violence in the West Bank escalated when the war in Gaza erupted with Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. Israel has staged frequent raids in the territory, especially but not limited to its north, using ground and air power in violence that has killed many militants but also other Palestinians, some of them throwing rocks to protest the incursions as well as others not involved in confrontations. Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, all territories the Palestinians seek for a future independent state. Around 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in about 130 settlements scattered across the West Bank. Much of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to Palestinian statehood. Israel views the West Bank as its biblical heartland and believes the fate of the settlements should be determined in peace negotiations, which have been moribund for some 15 years. Israel says much of the Palestinian militancy in the West Bank is fueled by Iran and views the fighting there as part of its ongoing multifront wars to secure its borders and prevent a second Oct. 7-style attack. Associated Press writers Jalal Bwaitel in Ramallah, West Bank, and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed. Tia Goldenberg, The Associated Press
