Daily Times

The call came in the middle of the night, Mohammed Shula said. His daughter-in-law, eight months pregnant with her first child, was whispering. There was panic in her voice.

“Help, please,” Shula recalled her saying. “You have to save us.” Minutes later, Sondos Shalabi was fatally shot.

Shalabi and her husband, 26-year-old Yazan Shula, had fled their home in the early hours of Sunday as Israeli security forces closed in on Nur Shams refugee camp, a crowded urban district in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem.

Israeli military vehicles surrounded the camp days earlier, part of a larger crackdown on Palestinian militants across the northern occupied West Bank that has escalated since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza took effect last month. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has announced the expansion of the army´s operations, saying it aimed to stop Iran – Hamas´ ally – from opening up a new front in the occupied territory.

Palestinians see the shooting of Shalabi, 23, as part of a worrying trend toward more lethal, warlike Israeli tactics in the West Bank. The Israeli army issued a short statement afterward, saying it had referred her shooting to the military police for criminal investigation.

Also on Sunday, just a few streets away, another young Palestinian woman, 21, was killed by the Israeli army. An explosive device it had planted detonated as she approached her front door.

In response, the Israeli army said that a wanted militant was in her house, compelling Israeli forces to break down the door. It said the woman did not leave despite the soldiers´ calls. The army said it “regrets any harm caused to uninvolved civilians.”

Across the West Bank and east Jerusalem, at least 905 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Many appear to have been militants killed in gunbattles during Israeli raids. But rock-throwing protesters and uninvolved civilians – including a 2-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy and 73-year-old man – have also been killed in recent weeks.

“The basic rules of fighting, of confronting the Palestinians, is different now,” said Maher Kanan, a member of the emergency response team in the nearby village of Anabta, describing what he sees as the army’s new attitude and tactics. “The displacement, the number of civilians killed, they are doing here what they did in Gaza.”

Mohammed Shula, 58, told The Associated Press that his son and daughter-in-law said they started plotting their flight from Nur Shams last week as Israeli drones crisscrossed the sky, Palestinian militants boobytrapped the roads and their baby’s due date approached.

His son “was worried about (Shalabi) all the time. He knew that she wouldn´t be able to deliver the baby if the siege got worse,” he said.

Yazan Shula, a construction worker in Israel who lost his job after the Israeli government banned nearly 200,000 Palestinian workers from entering its territory, couldn’t wait to be a father, his own father said.

Shalabi, quiet and kind, was like a daughter to him – moving into their house in Nur Shams 18 month sago, after marrying his son. “This baby is what they were living for,” he said.

Early Sunday, the young couple packed up some clothes and belongings. The plan was simple – they would drive to the home of Shalabi´s parents outside the camp, some miles away in Tulkarem where soldiers weren’t operating. It was safer there, and near the hospital where Shalabi planned to give birth. Yazan Shula’s younger brother, 19-year-old Bilal, also wanted to get out and jumped in the backseat.

Not long after the three of them drove off, there was a burst of gunfire. Mohammed Shula’s phone rang.

His daughter-in-law’s breaths came in gasps, he said. An Israeli sniper had shot her husband, she told her father-in-law, and blood was flowing from the back of his head. She was unscathed, but had no idea what to do.

He coached her into staying calm. He told her to knock on the door of any house to ask for help. Her phone on speaker, he could hear her knocking and shrieking, he said. No one was answering.

She told him she could see soldiers approaching. The line went dead, said Mohammed Shula, who then called the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service.

“We couldn’t go outside because we were afraid we’d be shot,” said Suleiman Zuheiri, 65, a neighbor of the Shula family who was helping the medics reach their bodies. “We tried and tried. All in vain. (The medics) kept getting turned back, and the girl kept bleeding.”