Israel Finds a Grenade Under Baby

A Palestinian woman was found Saturday with a hand grenade under her baby during a West Bank raid, an Israeli army officer said.

The woman, Aziza Jawabra, said the grenade was in the pocket of her jacket and she did not know it was there.

The grenade was found while soldiers searched a house in Assira, north of Nablus. Soldiers arrested five fugitives, including Jawabra’s husband, Israeli Lt. Col. Arik Chen said. The troops found 22 pounds of explosives in the house, he added.

Jawabra, who said she didn’t know that explosives were hidden in the house, called the raid traumatic. The troops arrived about 2 a.m. and forced her to leave the house with her children, refusing to let her get dressed or put on shoes. Jawabra said the soldiers tried to get her to hand the baby to someone else, but she refused.

The soldiers searched Jawabra after they became suspicious of the way she was carrying her month-old son. She was holding the grenade just under the baby’s backside, Chen said. “To see a woman using her baby to hide a grenade is not typical.”

In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers shot and killed an 18-year-old Palestinian suspected of planting a bomb on a road near Ramallah, the army said.