BEIT AWA, West Bank (AP) — For nearly three weeks, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have mostly been bystanders as Israel and Iran exchange airstrikes. But on Wednesday night, four women became victims of the war.
Along with more than a dozen of their friends and daughters, they were inside a beauty salon when an Iranian missile struck only steps away. It sent shrapnel tearing through walls lined with shelves stacked with acrylic nails and bottles of turquoise and scarlet polish.
Mourning friends and relatives on Thursday gathered near the trailer that offered manicures, pedicures and eyebrow services. Hundreds of coffee cups and acrylic nails lay scattered across the salon’s floor, stained red with dried blood. Holes dotted the metal walls and a small crater marked where the strike hit.
Hadeel Masalmeh, the salon’s co-owner, returned with bandages covering shrapnel wounds on her face and body.
“I wasn’t supposed to leave the hospital but I wanted to say goodbye to Sahera,” she said of her business partner and sister-in-law.
The strike killed Sahera along with three other women from the extended Masalmeh family in Beit Awa — Maes, Aseel and Amal, who was six months pregnant and at the salon with her three year-old daughter. The toddler was one of more than a dozen women and children that Palestinian Health Ministry reported as injured in the strike. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said some were undergoing surgery or amputations.
Palestinians lack shelters
In Israel, much of life has revolved around sirens and alerts since the war started, sending people running to shelters, often several times a day. Palestinians have gone about business as usual, barely pausing when distant sirens blare or interceptions boom overhead.
That was the case Wednesday night when sirens sounded from the nearby settlement of Negohot 2 miles (3 kilometers) away. Few reacted until a customer spotted red flares in the sky and Hadeel rushed everyone inside.
“We heard the sound of sirens. But we didn’t pay much attention and didn’t expect any shrapnel or anything like that to fall on us,” she said.
The reaction to the alarm was the same Thursday. Mourners gathered at the family home next to the salon to pay final respects. As women sobbed, few looked up while alerts beeped from the handful of phones with Israeli SIM cards.
The fatalities underscored the lack of protections in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians there don’t have the kind of shelters found in most of Israel, where building codes have required them since the first Gulf War. Even in parts of Israel without home shelters — including many Arab-majority and Bedouin towns — public shelters are often available nearby.
Though not a target, Palestinians have watched missiles streak overhead each night and Israeli interceptors explode them above. Fragments have hit buildings, including last week outside the West Bank city Nablus, where they punched through a three-story house while its owner was at evening prayers.
The ‘golden hour’
Abedullraziq Almasalmeh, a neighbor and relative of the four women killed, heard missiles whoosh and then boom, his house shaking as he reached to dial for ambulances after 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Their drive should’ve been less than 10 minutes but took 25, he said, leaving victims waiting during critical early moments.
The Palestinian Red Crescent blamed an Israeli gate near Negohot that diverted ambulances. “This forced closure caused significant delays, compelling ambulances to take long, rugged alternative routes, which critically impacted the ‘golden hour’ essential for life-saving interventions,” it said in a statement.
Before the beauty salon strike, the group had warned that gates were increasingly preventing them from reaching emergencies.
Qusai Jabr, the manager of the group’s disaster risk management department, told The Associated Press that in the first week of the war alone, delays affected response calls to women in labor, seniors suffering strokes and victims of settler attacks.
Israeli authorities have not imposed the kind of full lockdown seen during last year’s 12-day war with Iran. But the proliferation of hundreds more gates has made travel just as, if not more, difficult. Jabr said there were about 800 gates during last year’s war and now there are roughly 1,100, both manned and unmanned.
Stuck between Iran and Israel
The nature of the strike Wednesday was unclear. Israel’s military called it a direct hit by an Iranian missile, rather than fallen intercepted debris. It said it was a cluster munition, which explodes midair and disperses smaller bomblets across wide areas, trading precision for coverage. Iran’s government has not commented.
Regardless, in Beit Awa, it was merely the latest trauma. The town overlooking the concrete barrier separating Palestinian towns from Israel has struggled economically since Israel revoked tens of thousands of Palestinian work permits after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.
The surrounding Hebron Hills have long been a hot spot for settler violence and rights groups say settlers have taken advantage of the uncertainty of the war to ramp up attacks.
The Israeli rights group Yesh Din said last week it had documented more than 100 incidents across West Bank communities throughout the Iran war.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported 18 Palestinians killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank since the start of 2026, including a 27-year-old man killed by a settler in nearby Masafer Yatta less than two weeks ago.
For many in the area, including funeralgoers in Beit Awa, the feeling of being geographically between Israel and Iran has been inescapable.
“We’re between two fires,” Mahmoud Sweity said.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
