BEIT AWA, West Bank: 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 a 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.
