Palestinians grieve for a father-to-be shot by Israeli troops the day his son was born

A poster announces the death of Nayef Samaro, 25, after he was killed during an Israeli military raid on Nablus in May. Ruth Sherlock/NPR hide caption toggle caption Ruth Sherlock/NPR NABLUS, West Bank — It was supposed to be the happiest day of Raghed al-Shami's life. She was about to give birth to a baby boy. But instead of having her husband beside her for the arrival of their first child, Shami found herself kneeling over her husband's lifeless body for a last goodbye before being taken to the maternity ward. Nayef Samaro had been on his way to meet her at the hospital when he was shot dead by an Israeli soldier. Samaro, 25, was killed during an Israeli military raid on May 3 on a busy shopping thoroughfare in Nablus. He is one of the 1,103 Palestinians, including 241 children, in the occupied West Bank that the United Nations says have been killed by Israeli settlers or security forces since the Hamas-led attack on Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. It's part of an unprecedented increase in Israeli military operations and attacks in the West Bank for which the perpetrators are almost never prosecuted. "We have seen that impunity is a given," Ajith Sunghay, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told NPR. …