Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan was cut off during his speech at terror victim Tzeela Gez’s funeral on Thursday by the victim’s sister after making political comments, despite being told not to.
“We need to tell the truth,” said Dagan, asserting that the writing had been on the wall for the terror attack. “We warned, and we shouted, and this was the fourth shooting attack on the same route, in the same place.”
“We came to Israel to live here, not to be sitting ducks,” he exclaimed, demanding to know “why the village of murderers, Bruqin (the Palestinian village close to the site of the terror attack), is still standing?”
After those remarks, Gez’s sister Shaked cut him off.
“I don’t want politics!” she shouted through tears. “I want love for my sister! Let us finish with love for my sister!”
In response, Dagan insisted that he is “respecting your sister,” to which Shaked shot back: “No! No, you’re not.”
She then told Dagan to “get down off the podium, please.”
Dagan initially tried to continue his criticisms of the government but eventually relented after further protests from Shaked and other mourners at the funeral.
“We will express love, like you say,” Dagan said. “I respect your pain, we’ll continue [this conversation] later. I call on everyone to express love, like your sister would’ve asked, and we’ll say our criticisms later, after the funeral.”
Tzeela Gez, 30, was shot on Wednesday night in the northern West Bank while driving to give birth to her child. She was evacuated in critical condition to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah, where she was later declared dead. Hospital staff executed an emergency C-section to save the newborn, who remains in serious condition.
Her husband, Hananel, was lightly hurt in the incident.
The manhunt for the terrorist, who is believed to have acted alone, is still undergoing.
“We don’t know where he came from; he came alone,” a senior official from the IDF’s Central Command told the Maariv daily. “We’re still in the manhunt, so I won’t get into details. Right now, there’s nothing new.”
The Israel Defense Forces has been surrounding the Palestinian towns of Bruqin and Kafr ad-Dik, which are near the site of the attack, amid the hunt for the terrorist.
Far-right Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech blamed IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth for Gez’s death. Settler politicians have previously slammed the IDF following terror attacks in the West Bank.
“A woman was murdered on her way to the delivery room, and it’s all your fault,” Har-Melech said, directly addressing Bluth.
She accused the IDF general of endangering Israeli lives by reopening checkpoints despite intelligence indicating the presence of a terror cell in the area.
“I gave you a chance. I wanted to believe you would act differently than those who came before you,” she continued. “I won’t stay silent about you anymore.”
Bluth, who comes from a religious-Zionist background and grew up in the West Bank settlement of Neveh Tzuf, was originally welcomed by settlers when appointed to lead the IDF’s Central Command after years of tensions with his predecessor, Yehuda Fox.
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip ignited the war there.
Since then, troops have arrested some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas. According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 950 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
There has also been a significant increase in settler violence against Palestinians since the start of the war.
During the same period, 52 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.