A young Palestinian mother of two died Friday afternoon, August 7, after being mortally wounded by an Israeli army bullet while preparing breakfast for her children in their home in Jenin in the northern West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that 23-year-old Dalia Samoudi succumbed to her wounds hours after being hit by Israeli military gunfire during a raid into the al-Jaberiyyat neighborhood in the city of Jenin where occupation forces detained, interrogated and threatened to re-arrest a former prisoner, Khaled Suleiman Abu Hassan, after breaking into his house early Friday. The raid sparked confrontations during which Israeli troops opened sustained fire towards local teens who attempted to block their passage through city situated in Palestinian-controlled Area A.

The body of 23-year-old Dalia Samoudi, shrouded in a Palestinian flag, is brought to burial on Friday, August 7, in the Palestinian city of Jenin in the northern West Bank. (Photo: Al-Ittihad)

According to the Communist newspaper Al-Ittihad, Samoudi was hit by an Israeli bullet that penetrated her liver, pancreas and aortic artery. She was rushed to hospital where she underwent several operations and was then admitted into the intensive care unit, where she was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

Director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Mahmoud al-Sa’di confirmed that a Samoudi was hit in the abdomen with a bullet fired by Israeli forces while she was inside her home during the raid. Al-Sa’di added that the Israeli forces also directly opened fire on the ambulance trying to reach and evacuate Samoudi from her home, and that two bullets had penetrated the ambulance.

“I am hit, Bassem. Take care of the children,” were the last words that Dalia Samoudi cried out to her husband, according to the Palestinian news agency, WAFA, before she collapsed to the floor, profusely bleeding after she was struck by the fatal Israeli bullet. Friday at dawn, Dalia had been preparing breakfast for her year-and-a-half old son, Siraj, and his 4-month-old brother, Iyas. The young mother had been yelling to her husband to close the windows of their home against the toxic teargas fired by the Israeli forces during confrontations with teens that broke out in their neighborhood.

Dalia’s father, Ahmad Istiti, himself a former prisoner who spent several terms in Israeli prisons, painfully told WAFA: “I had Dalia while I was a prisoner in the occupation jails in 1996, and I named her Dalia (grapevines) as a reflection of my belonging and love for Palestine, its land and its grapes.” He added, “The cold-blooded murder of my daughter is not the first and it will not be the last. It is a systematic policy by the occupiers against our women, children and elderly people inside their homes, without any real deterrent that would stop this tragedy that is repeated continuously.”