If you'd looked under environment, you'd have seen I'm playing on someone's realm. Ergo. I cannot change settings. The owner assures me the settings are unchanged from pre-1.14.1, and there is nothing in the notes about Illagers to suggest that they attack anything other than villages, albeit you would expect a response if you ganked one during a raid on a village. There is nothing to suggest that they should spawn on PC property, inside a fence perimeter, at all. let alone a properly lit block, I did not have Bad Omen on my character, either, so this was an unprovoked attack on a PC, out of the context of a village encounter. If this is a thing, it should be in the notes, as an Illager/Pillager behaviour, and it is not. I reread the notes before posting.
Sorry for the delay, I built a regular Minecraft world and a long system of Nether tunnels, I spent a lot of time standing at a breech in one nether tunnel floor. There were Ghasts audible, but no attacks happened.
Yes, it was a Mojang realm. The best time to try to reproduce the incident would have been when I had no levels, but I was trying to get back some of my gear, and didn't think of that.
win10 java 1.13.2 (multiplayer/survival). Steps to reproduce as above. Animals have not been bred since yesterday (real time). Hearts produced, animation of pairing followed, wheat consumed from inventory, no offspring produced.