On Thursday, Israel revealed its plan to establish 22 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which includes the formal recognition of outposts previously constructed without official approval.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks on Gaza, where residents face severe food shortages due to nearly three months of Israeli border closures, resulted in at least 13 fatalities overnight, according to local health authorities.
Israel seized the West Bank, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, during the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians aspire to have these territories form their future state. The majority of the global community sees the settlements as illegal and a barrier to solving the long-standing conflict.
In 2005, Israel withdrew its settlements from the Gaza Strip, but leading figures in the current government have called for them to be re-established and for much of the Palestinian population of the territory to be resettled elsewhere through what they describe as voluntary emigration.
The war in Gaza began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, in which militants stormed into Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas still holds 58 hostages, around a third of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements. Israeli forces have rescued eight and recovered dozens of bodies. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.
Here’s the latest:
Israeli newborn dies after mother was killed in West Bank attack
An Israeli baby who was delivered after his mother was fatally shot in an attack in the West Bank has died.
A Palestinian militant opened fire on Tzeela Gez’ car as her husband drove her through the Israeli-occupied West Bank on May 14. The couple was heading to the hospital to give birth. She later died from her wounds, but doctors delivered the baby by emergency cesarean section.
Hamas praised the attack but did not claim it. The military announced days later that its forces had killed the suspected attacker.
“It is with great sadness and pain that we learned this morning of the death of baby Ravid Chaim, son of Tzeela and Hananel Gez,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “There are no words that can offer consolation for the murder of a newborn baby along with his mother.”
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