Father killed in Nablus raid hours before son's birth

Nayef Samaro, 25, was killed in an Israeli military raid in Nablus on May 3, 2026, after leaving work and heading to Rafidia Hospital to meet his wife for the birth of their first child. He was shot dead in the city’s busy commercial area, near the old city, in a killing that unfolded in the middle of an operation that also left other Palestinians wounded.

Palestinian officials said four other people were injured in the raid. The Palestinian Red Crescent said one Palestinian was killed and four were seriously wounded. Samaro was reportedly shot in the head. His body was later taken to Rafidia Hospital, where his wife, Shami, was giving birth.

Shami delivered the couple’s son after Samaro’s death, and medical staff said both mother and baby were in stable condition. The newborn was reportedly delivered by caesarean section in Nablus and was born less than 24 hours after his father was killed. Family accounts said Samaro had been working at a restaurant before he left for the hospital.

The loss fit into a wider pattern of deadly force in the occupied West Bank, where families have faced repeated Israeli military raids, street closures and sudden eruptions of violence in populated areas. Ajith Sunghay, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said, “We have seen that impunity is a given,” and added that “There is no accountability for violence by Israeli settlers or by the Israeli military.”

The United Nations says 1,103 Palestinians, including 241 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Samaro’s death added a personal tragedy to that toll: a father killed on the day his son was born, and a family beginning life and mourning at the same hospital.