Israeli forces fatally shoot two Palestinian women as tensions escalate across West Bank

Israeli forces have shot dead two Palestinian women in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank, amid an escalation of violence across the occupied Palestinian territories.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, in the first incident on Sunday, Israeli forces opened fire on a Palestinian woman — identified as Ghada Ibrahim Sabatien—while she was crossing a military checkpoint near the village of Husan, west of city of Bethlehem, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.

The victim, aged in her 40s, died at a hospital in the West Bank city of Beit Jala where she was taken for treatment, after suffering massive blood loss from a torn artery, the ministry said.  

The Israeli military claimed that its troops fired warning shots into the air when the woman approached them, before they “fired towards the suspect’s lower body.”

The woman, a widowed mother of six, was then transferred to the Red Crescent for treatment, the Israeli military said, adding that it was investigating the incident.

In the second incident, a few hours later on Sunday, a Palestinian woman allegedly tried to carry out a stabbing attack on an Israeli border police officer in the city of al-Khalil, also known as Hebron. She was shot and killed by Israeli forces.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the Palestinian woman “arrived at one of the checkpoints where the border police … are stationed and stabbed” one of them, who was lightly wounded.

The statement added that the Palestinian woman was then “neutralized” by Israeli forces.

AFP cited an Israeli police spokesman as saying that the alleged assailant was “not alive.”

The latest development came after Israeli occupation forces launched a new wave of brutal raids and arrests against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin earlier the same day, following a shooting operation by a young Palestinian in a crowded entertainment area of Tel Aviv.