BEIT AWA, West Bank — They were getting their nails and eyelashes done in time for the celebration of Eid al-Fitr when their beauty salon was hit by a missile. Four of the women, all members of an extended family, were killed — the first Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to die in the Iran war.
On the day after the strike, a scattering of acrylic nails, sequins and blood carpeted the floor.
More than a dozen women were wounded by shattered glass and shrapnel when the missile crashed Wednesday near the caravan in Beit Awa, the Palestinian state-run news agency Wafa reported, citing local and medical officials.
Iran, under attack by the United States and Israel, had sent a barrage of weapons toward Israel. Palestinian officials who visited the site blamed an Israeli interceptor. The Israel Defense Forces, reached for comment, asked for more information. The Washington Post could not independently verify the missile’s origin.
The attacks came two days before Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan — a celebratory day “when all the girls go to the salon,” said Hadeel Masalmeh, who co-owned the business. Family and friends held funerals Thursday for the women, whose bodies were wrapped in heavy winter blankets.
Hadeel, who joined the mourners with her face bandaged, said she had been working on a woman when the missile struck. The woman, Asil Masalmeh, later died of her injuries.
Suhair Masalmeh, Hadeel’s cousin, saw a flash in the sky, heard the explosion and rushed to the salon. She leaped from her car and ran toward the screaming. Someone was carrying a woman from the salon.
“I saw someone carrying a young girl,” she said. “When I went inside the salon, a woman grabbed my shoulder and said her sister was inside.”
Then she saw the bodies. “Mais had been hit in the head by shrapnel,” she said. “Amal had a severe head injury also, and part of her head was missing. Sahera was in the rubble, her intestines completely exposed.” Women were “piled on top of each other.”
Killed were Sahera Razak Masalmeh, 33, who co-owned the salon with Hadeel; Mais Aazi Masalmeh, 17: Asil Samir Masalmeh, 32; and Amal Sabhi Abd al-Karim Matawa Masalmeh.
Asil and Amal were pregnant, family members said.
Hadeel ran the caravan salon as a “project together” with Sahera. She had experienced strikes but never thought she’d be affected. For many Palestinians in the West Bank, there are few places to shelter.
One customer said she saw “a bright red flash in the sky.” Hadeel told her to come back inside so she wouldn’t get hurt. “She was scared and stayed behind me while I kept working like everything was normal.”
“Then the power went out and we heard an explosion.” Hadeel ran outside screaming, not realizing she’d been hit by shrapnel. That was when Suhair went in. “Sahera is dead,” she told Hadeel. “Sahera is dead.”
“That’s all I remember,” Hadeel said. Sahera’s body was taken to her family’s home. Hadeel, crying, reached out to touch her friend for the last time.
“Sahera, she was like the moon,” Hadeel said. “Everyone loved her. She was kind and passionate.
“We started from nothing and built everything together, side by side. The day before she died, she told me, ‘We’re going to go global.’ People loved our work. They were happy with it. May she rest in peace. She was always laughing.”
Hadeel still has shrapnel in an eye, a leg and her abdomen. Removing it could be dangerous, her doctor said, so they left the pieces. She was advised against leaving the hospital, but she “wanted to say goodbye to Sahera one last time.”
“I just needed to see her,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”
Westfall reported from Jaffa, Israel. Siham Shamalakh in Cairo contributed to this report.
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