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 that Hamas applauded as a “heroic act.”
The baby boy survived after being delivered in an emergency cesarean section, Israeli health officials said, and remained in “serious but stable” condition. No Palestinian militant group took responsibility for the attack, but a Hamas spokesman praised the shooting in a statement.
Israeli officials described the episode as an act of terrorism and said they were searching for the killer. The shooting came amid heightened violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where about 500,000 Israeli settlers live alongside about three million Palestinians.
Over the past year, Israeli forces have escalated raids against militant groups in some Palestinian cities. In the process, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands displaced. Since January, Israeli forces have seized parts of two major Palestinian cities, demolishing buildings and causing residents to flee.
Israeli forces killed at least five Palestinians on Thursday in the West Bank, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian health officials. The military said the five had been armed and were killed during a firefight.
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 Gez, 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 obstetrics and gynecology division 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. Doctors quickly checked to see if the child had survived and found a pulse, she said.
Less than 60 seconds later, they had sliced open her womb and removed the child, said Dr. Walfisch. “The emergency removal of the child improves the chances of survival for both patients — for the woman as well as for the child,” she said.
But despite their efforts to resuscitate her, Ms. Gez died from her wounds, Dr. Walfisch said. The child was taken to 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 act” and called on Palestinians to carry out “further painful operations against the occupation.” The group did not say whether one of its fighters had been 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.
After Ms. Gez’s killing, the Israeli military said it had encircled Palestinian villages near the intersection where the attack took place.
After the shooting, far-right Israeli politicians called for retribution in the West Bank. Bezalel Smotrich, a hard-line minister and settler leader, called for Israel to “flatten” Palestinian villages that he called “terror nests.”
Palestinians have also been subject to attacks by extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, some of which have turned deadly.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
Ephrat Livni is a reporter for The Times’s DealBook newsletter, based in Washington.
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