Woman injured in terror shooting recovering; her baby is still critical
Shira Ish-Ran hasn’t yet been told that the infant was delivered; doctors at Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem say her husband is also recovering
The condition of a pregnant woman who was critically injured in a terror attack outside a West Bank settlement on Sunday is steadily improving, the hospital where she is being treated said Tuesday morning.
The hospital also said the condition of her infant son, who was delivered by emergency C-section late Sunday night after the attack, continued to deteriorate.
Doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center said Shira Ish-Ran, 21, was awake and communicating. The hospital said her husband Amichai, who was moderately injured in the drive-by shooting, was also improving.
“She is conscious, but the doctors say that whatever we tell her now, she won’t remember, so there’s no point telling her that her baby has been delivered,” Ish-Ran’s mother, Liora Silverstein, told Israel Radio on Tuesday morning.
“But we needs lots of prayers, the baby is in critical condition,” she said. “We are surrounded by lots of love and support, and I just want to take the opportunity to thank the people of Israel.”
Ish-Ran showed significant improvement in her condition on Monday, when her parents told reporters that she was briefly awoken from a coma and communicated with her family.
“We were able to go into intensive care. She opened her eyes and asked for Mom, so we rushed in,” Ish-Ran’s father, Haim Silverstein, said. “She got teary-eyed when she saw us. She got so emotional that we had to leave, because her pulse went up too much.”
He said doctors had brought her out of sedation to check on her status, but put her under again afterwards for her safety.
“There’s nothing like seeing your daughter open her eyes and communicate with her eyes, because her mouth was full of tubes,” he said.
Ish-Ran was critically injured when terrorists in a passing car opened fire at a group of Israelis waiting at a bus stop outside the settlement of Ofra, injuring seven people.
She was rushed to Shaare Zedek in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body. Doctors performed an emergency cesarean section on Ish-Ran, who was 30 weeks pregnant, and delivered her baby.
The infant was immediately transferred to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, and at first was reported to be in stable condition. However in the two days that followed the infant’s condition has worsened. On Monday, doctors said they believed Ish-Ran’s baby suffered a brain injury due to his mother losing a lot of blood in the attack, and was hooked up to a ventilator.
The head of emergency medicine at Shaare Zedek, Dr. Alon Schwartz, told reporters that medical teams were fighting for the baby’s life “in these very moments.” He said the coming day would be critical for his condition.
The IDF’s search for the Ofra attackers entered its third day on Tuesday, with troops setting up roadblocks around Ramallah and and conducting a series of raids on nearby Palestinian villages.
According to reports in Palestinian media, at least three Palestinians were shot in clashes with Israeli security forces during overnight searches.
In the town of Tubas, south of Nablus, troops fired at Palestinian rioters during clashes that broke out during an overnight raid, injuring at least three people, according to reports.
Low-level clashes and arrest raids were also reported in other West Bank towns.
In Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian governor, soldiers set up checkpoints to limit movement in and out of the city and raided shops in the nearby suburb of Birzeit, confiscating footage from security cameras.
The IDF on Tuesday confirmed the manhunt for the Ofra gunmen continued, saying its searches were focused in the central West Bank area.
On Monday, Israeli troops carried out a rare daytime raid in Ramallah, storming the offices of the Palestinian Authority’s Wafa news agency and other nearby buildings for security footage.
Low-level clashes broke out just a few hundred meters from the home of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, with two Palestinians injured by live fire, according to the Red Crescent ambulance service.
An army spokeswoman declined to comment on the Ramallah raid, including whether it was part of the hunt for the gunmen from Sunday night’s shooting.
PA officials fumed over the Israeli incursion into the Palestinian city, with Abbas speaking to foreign officials to urge action against Israel, according to Wafa.
Abbas’s office threatened “important and fateful decisions” would be made if the raids on Palestinian cities and “acts of aggression” against Palestinians continue, without elaborating.
Agencies contributed to this report.
