Israel kills pregnant mother and her baby in retaliatory attacks

The 30-year-old woman and her infant daughter were killed by an Israeli air strike on a camp in Gaza City

Caroline Mortimer
Sunday 11 October 2015 09:53 BST
Palestinians bury pregnant woman and toddler killed in Israeli airstrike

An Israeli airstrike has killed a pregnant Palestinian woman and her daughter in Gaza.

Ashraf al-Qidra, a Gaza Health Ministry spokesman, said the woman, Noor Hassan, was aged 30 and pregnant. Her daughter was three.

The remains of the house in Gaza City where the missile hit.

A five-year-old boy and a man were also wounded in the powerful explosion in one of the Hamas camps in Gaza City which caused a house to collapse.

The Israeli Defence Force said it carried out airstrikes in Gaza targeting Hamas weapons manufacturing facilities in response to renewed rocket fire toward Israel.

It comes on the same day as an attack by a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint in the West Bank.

The 31-year-old woman chanted “God is great” before detonating the bomb in her car after a police officer noted her driving suspiciously and motioned for her to stop.

The officer was said to be “lightly wounded” and the woman was critically injured.

The attacks on both sides come amid renewed tension in the West Bank and along the Gaza border which has since spread to the rest of Israel.

So far, nine Palestinians have been killed over the course of just one weekend in border clashes.

Palestinians carried out two stabbing attacks in Jerusalem on Saturday before being shot dead by police, while another two Palestinian youths were killed near the Gaza border fence.

Since the latest wave of unrest began this month, eight Palestinians have been killed while carrying out attacks and 13 have been killed in protests and clashes in the West Bank and Gaza. The Red Crescent medical service says over 500 Palestinians have been wounded in violent protests in the West Bank, including about 100 from live fire.

At the start of the month, Palestinians shot two Israeli settlers to death in front of their children in the West Bank. In a separate incident, a Palestinian wielding a knife killed two Israeli men and wounded a mother and toddler in Jerusalem before being shot dead.

Additional reporting by agencies

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