TULKAREM: The Palestinian health ministry said Zionist 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 “targeted terrorists” in a raid. It later said military police had launched an investigation into the death of the pregnant woman.

Zionist 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 predawn 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 (Zionist) occupation preventing the transfer of the injured to the hospital,” it added. When asked by AFP about the shooting of the pregnant woman in Nur Shams, the Zionist military said “following the incident an investigation was opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division”.

Murad Alyan, a member of the popular committee in the Nur Shams camp, told AFP 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 “a crime of execution committed by the occupation forces”, accusing Zionist forces of “deliberately targeting defenseless 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 “(Zionist) forces used explosives to open the door of their family house”. The Zionist military told AFP it was looking into both incidents.

AFP 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 Zionist military earlier said its forces were “expanding the operation in northern Samaria”, using its term for the north of the West Bank, which the Zionist entity has occupied since 1967.

The Palestinian health ministry has said at least 70 Palestinians have been killed by Zionist fire in the West Bank this year. Violence there has escalated since the October 2023 outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 886 Palestinians have been killed by Zionist forces or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza war began. – AFP