Israeli woman about to give birth killed in the attack on the West Bank

An Israeli woman, on the way to a hospital to give birth, was shot in the West Bank Wednesday in a attack applauded by Hamas as a “heroic operation”.

The woman’s baby, a boy, survived after being delivered to an emergency cesarean, said Israeli health officials, and remains in a “serious but stable” state. No Palestinian militant group took immediate responsibility for the attack, but a spokesperson for Hamas praised the shooting in a statement.

Israeli officials described it as an act of terrorism and said they had started a search for the killer.

The shooting occurred in the midst of increased violence in the West Bank occupied by Israeli, where 500,000 Israelis live in colonies alongside around three million Palestinians. In recent months, Israeli forces have greatly increased raids targeting militant groups in certain Palestinian cities.

In the process, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands were moved. Recent fighting has exacerbated the tensions of simulator between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank.

The woman killed, Tzeela Gez, 30, therapist and mother of three other children, left her home in the Israeli colony of Bruchin on Wednesday evening, ready to deliver. As she and her husband went to the hospital, a Palestinian shooter opened fire on their car, according to the Israeli army.