Israel’s fatal shooting of a pregnant Palestinian woman puts the focus on West Bank violence

Mohammed Shula displays a picture of his hospitalized son, Yazan, while inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP)
Mohammed Shula displays a picture of his hospitalized son, Yazan, while inside a relative's house where he and his wife have taken refuge at the West Bank village of Kafr al-Labad, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 12 February 2025
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Israel’s fatal shooting of a pregnant Palestinian woman puts the focus on West Bank violence

Israel’s fatal shooting of a pregnant Palestinian woman puts the focus on West Bank violence
  • 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

KAFR AL-LABAD, West Bank: 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.”
Bilal Shula wasn’t hurt. He was arrested from the scene and detained for several hours.
The Red Crescent said that the International Committee of the Red Cross had secured approval from the Israeli military to allow medics inside the camp. But the paramedics were detained twice, for a half-hour each time, as they made their way toward the battered car, it said.
When asked why soldiers had blocked ambulances, the Israeli military repeated that it launched an investigation into the events surrounding Shalabi’s killing.
It wasn’t until after 8 a.m. that medics finally reached the young couple, and were detained a third time while rushing the husband out of the camp to the hospital, the Red Crescent said.
Yazan Shula was unconscious and in critical condition, and, as of Tuesday, remains on life support at a hospital. Shalabi was found dead. Her fetus also did not survive the shooting.
Mohammed Shula keeps thinking about how soldiers saw Shalabi’s body bleeding on the ground and did nothing to help as they handcuffed his other son and marched him into their vehicle.
“Why did they shoot them? They were doing nothing wrong. They could have stopped them, asked a question, but no, they just shot,” he said, his fingers busily rubbing a strand of prayer beads.
Israeli security forces invaded the camp some hours later. Explosions resounded through the alleyways. Armored bulldozers rumbled down the roads, chewing up the pavement and rupturing underground water pipes. The electricity went out. Then the taps ran dry.
Before Mohammed Shula could process what was happening, he said, Israeli troops banged on his front door and ordered everyone — his daughter, son and several grandchildren, one of them a year old, another 2 months old — to leave their home.
The Israeli military denied it was carrying out forcible evacuations in the West Bank, saying that it was facilitating the departure of civilians who wanted to leave the combat zone on their own accord. It did not respond to follow-up questions about why over a dozen Palestinian civilians interviewed in Nur Shams camp made the same claims about their forcible displacement.
Mohammed Shula pointed to a bag of baby diapers in the corner of his friend’s living room. That’s all he had time to bring with him, he said, not even photographs, or clothes.

 


Netanyahu coalition jeopardized over ultra-Orthodox exemption from army

Updated 21 sec ago
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Netanyahu coalition jeopardized over ultra-Orthodox exemption from army

Netanyahu coalition jeopardized over ultra-Orthodox exemption from army
The government must pass the budget by the end of the month or call snap elections
United Torah Judaism holds seven seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament

BNEI BRAK, Israel: One of Israel’s most divisive domestic issues has reared itself again to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after a group in the ruling coalition said it would bring the government down unless it exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service.
Some members of United Torah Judaism, one of two ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties in the coalition, said in a letter that they would vote against the budget if the government did not pass a new law formalising exemptions for religious students.
“If this matter is once again sidelined or delayed for any reason, we will not be able to continue as partners in the coalition,” said the March 6 letter signed by Housing Minister and party chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf and two others.
The government must pass the budget by the end of the month or call snap elections. United Torah Judaism holds seven seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
It is too early to predict the consequences. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a proven master at smoothing over disagreements in his coalitions. An ultra-nationalist group that quit the government over the ceasefire in Gaza in January announced on Tuesday it was returning.
But pollster Mitchell Barak, who worked for Netanyahu in the 1990s, said this time ultra-Orthodox politicians appeared unwilling to compromise, and the prime minister might have to look outside the coalition for support to pass the budget, an extraordinary step.
“He’s going to look for someone who can compromise, save him, and be that ‘freyer’,” he said, speaking before the ultra-nationalists announced their return to the coalition and using a Yiddish word for someone who lets others take advantage of him. “That’s how he operates.”
The prime minister’s office declined to comment on the ultra-Orthodox ultimatum and whether he believed the budget could pass without their support.

MILITARY STRAINED
In Israel, military service is mandatory at age 18, after which Israelis become reservists liable to be called up for training or deployment.
But dating back to Israel’s founding in 1948 it made an exemption for ultra-Orthodox communities, known as Haredim, whose young men mainly dedicate their lives to studying religious texts in academies known as yeshivot.
Those communities were initially small but have grown rapidly in the following decades. According to government data, there are now 1.4 million Haredim, accounting for about 14 percent of the population, deepening resentment among other Israelis who are conscripted.
In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the exemption was unconstitutional, and last year it ordered the military to conscript yeshiva students. Legal experts say the only way to restore the exemption would be to pass a new law enshrining it.
Members of the Haredi community say they would resist any attempt to conscript their children.
“They can put us in prison,” said Yehoshua Menuchin at his home in Bnei Brak, a densely populated city close to Tel Aviv where many Haredim live.
Menuchin, who has a 19-year-old son who is not serving, said the debate was driven by politics, rather than by genuine military need.
“If it’s a matter of survival, like an Arab invasion, then the Haredim will be the first to volunteer in order to save lives. But as long as it is political, it won’t ever happen.”
But 18 months into war in Gaza and major military operations in the West Bank and Lebanon, resentment is growing, and many lawmakers say the exemption is unjustifiable.
“They don’t know what 30 days of reserve duty a year is, and they don’t know what it is to dread that knock on the door,” centrist opposition lawmaker Elazar Stern, a former general, told Reuters, referring to the moment a parent learns of a child’s death in service.

DIVINE INTERVENTION
The Haredim live in insular neighborhoods centered around strict religious observance, with their own schools that largely eschew math and science. They have twice as many children as the national average, rely heavily on state welfare and charity, and those who work are often in low-paying jobs.
They believe that sending their children to the military is an existential threat, fearing that exposure to secular Israelis and outside influences could undermine their way of life.
“I know one thing: we must go the way the Torah instructs us,” said Meir Zvi Bergman, one of Israel’s most widely followed Haredi rabbis. “God does not want us to go, so we won’t go.”
The army says it is working to create conditions to make it easier for more Haredim to serve, such as dedicated battalions with strict religious practices, including regular prayer and gender segregation.
“The responsibility to defend the country must be shared fairly,” Eyal Zamir, Israel’s new chief of the military staff, said in a speech this month taking up his post. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and Steven Scheer)



One of Israel’s most divisive domestic issues has reared itself again to challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after a group in the ruling coalition said it would bring the government down unless it exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service. (Reuters/File)

South Sudan party partially withdraws from peace process

South Sudan party partially withdraws from peace process
Updated 21 min 25 sec ago
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South Sudan party partially withdraws from peace process

South Sudan party partially withdraws from peace process
  • “The ongoing political witch-hunts continue to threaten the very essence and the existence of the (peace deal),” Pierino said
  • The fighting around Nasir in Upper Nile state has displaced 50,000 people since late February, according to the UN Humanitarian Coordinator

NAIROBI: A major party in South Sudan’s coalition government said on Tuesday it had suspended its role in a key element of a 2018 peace deal as relations between its leader Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir deteriorate amid clashes and arrests.
The agreement ended a five-year war between forces loyal to Kiir and his rival Machar, who now serves as First Vice President leading the SPLM-IO party. But the two men have a fractious relationship, which has worsened in recent weeks following clashes in the country’s east.
Earlier this month security forces rounded up several SPLM-IO officials, including the petroleum minister and the deputy head of the army, after the White Army ethnic militia forced troops to withdraw from the town of Nasir near the Ethiopian border.
The government has accused the SPLM-IO of links with the White Army, which mostly comprises armed ethnic Nuer youths who fought alongside Machar’s forces in the 2013-2018 war against predominantly ethnic Dinka troops loyal to Kiir. The party denies the allegations.
Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, deputy chairman of the SPLM-IO, said on Tuesday the party would not participate in security arrangements tied to the peace process until the detained officials were released.
“The ongoing political witch-hunts continue to threaten the very essence and the existence of the (peace deal),” Pierino said in a statement.
The fighting around Nasir in Upper Nile state has displaced 50,000 people since late February, of which 10,000 have fled to Ethiopia, according to Anita Kiki Gbeho, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan.

RAMPANT HATE SPEECH
South Sudan’s United Nations peacekeeping chief Nicholas Haysom said he was concerned the country was “on the brink of relapse into civil war.”
“With the proliferation of mis/disinformation in the public domain, hate speech is now rampant, raising concerns that the conflict could assume an ethnic dimension,” he said in a speech to the African Union.
Analysts say the war in neighboring Sudan has also spurred the breakdown of the peace process, with South Sudan’s oil revenues suspended, escalating regional tensions and arms flooding across the border.
“Already we are seeing the initial stages of spillover fighting in Upper Nile from the Sudan war. It will be difficult to prevent those tensions from spreading to (the capital) Juba,” said Alan Boswell from the International Crisis Group.


Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages

Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages
Updated 18 March 2025
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Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages

Families urge Israel PM to ‘stop the killing’ of Gaza hostages
  • The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu
  • “Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire”

JERUSALEM: Relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday of sacrificing their loved ones by carrying out a wave of deadly strikes that threatened a fragile truce.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said it had received no response to its request to meet with Netanyahu and other officials to hear how the remaining hostages would be “protected from the military pressure.”
“Now it becomes clear — the public officials did not meet with them because they were planning the explosion of the ceasefire, which could sacrifice their family members,” the campaign group said.
Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s unprecedented October 2023 attack which sparked the war, 58 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The overngith air strikes were by far the deadliest since a January ceasefire that largely halted the fighting and saw the handover of 33 hostages, both alive and dead, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory said at least 413 people were killed in the strikes.
The forum called on supporters of the hostages to cemonstrate outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem, warning that “military pressure could further endanger their lives and complicate efforts to bring them back safe and sound.”
“The families of the hostages will demand: Stop the killing and disappearance of the hostages now! First, return them — then everything else.”
The return of the hostages is a priority for the majority of Israelis.
“This morning, the moment we realized that we were going back to war, the first thing I thought about was: what about the hostages? This is a death sentence for the hostages, and it’s simply terrible,” said Muriel Aranov, a 62-year-old pensioner living in Tel Aviv.
As protesters headed to Jerusalem, Netanyahu took part in a security assessment with defense officials in Tel Aviv, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, his office said.
An earlier statement from Netanyahu’s office said the strikes were ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”
“We are at an impasse, we have said ‘yes’ more than once to concrete proposals from the US special envoy to extend the ceasefire, and Hamas has said ‘no’,” foreign ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said in a briefing.
“From now on, Israel will act against Hamas with increased military intensity,” he added.


Rafah border crossing in Gaza is closed, EU spokesperson says

Rafah border crossing in Gaza is closed, EU spokesperson says
Updated 18 March 2025
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Rafah border crossing in Gaza is closed, EU spokesperson says

Rafah border crossing in Gaza is closed, EU spokesperson says
  • EUBAM mission of the European Union has started to put in place emergency procedures

BRUSSELS: The border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah is closed, a spokesperson for the European Commission said on Tuesday.
“The crossing point is closed and the EUBAM mission of the European Union has started to put in place emergency procedures to deal with the situation as it develops,” the spokesperson told reporters in Brussels.


Professor deported from US back in Lebanon: family

Professor deported from US back in Lebanon: family
Updated 18 March 2025
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Professor deported from US back in Lebanon: family

Professor deported from US back in Lebanon: family
  • Rasha Alawieh was a kidney transplant specialist and professor at the Ivy League Brown University
  • She was detained on Thursday after spending weeks on holiday in Lebanon

BEIRUT: A Lebanese professor is back in her home country after she was expelled from the United States for attending the funeral of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah during a trip to Beirut, her family said Tuesday.

Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at the Ivy League Brown University, was detained on Thursday at Logan International Airport in Boston and deported the following day, US media reported.

A member of Alawieh’s family said that “after she was detained by Homeland Security at Boston airport, she was asked whether she had participated in the funeral of former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah” on February 23.

Alawieh, 34, responded by saying she had joined the many thousands who gathered on the road outside the stadium where the funeral was held, but that she “did not attend the ceremony inside the stadium,” said the family member who did not wish to give their name.

“Pictures were found on her phone of Hezbollah figures” and she was accused of being sympathetic to the group, the family member added.

“Her life’s dream is to return to the United States because her whole future will be at risk.”

She was detained on Thursday after spending weeks on holiday in Lebanon, where she had received a residence visa from the US embassy granted to foreigners with special skills, the family member said.

The Department of Homeland Security on Monday posted on X saying that Alawieh “traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah – a brutal terrorist who led Hezbollah, responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade terror spree.

“Alawieh openly admitted to this... as well as her support of Nasrallah,” it added.

The White House later shared the Homeland Security post with the message “Bye-bye, Rasha.”

Thousands participated in Nasrallah’s funeral in Beirut last month, which came months after he was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut in September.

Iran-backed Hezbollah had delayed the funeral until a ceasefire with Israel and the withdrawal of the majority of Israeli troops from south Lebanon.