The shooting of a baby traveling with his family has intensified the control of military operations in the territory amid ongoing violence.
HEBRON, West Bank (AP) – Israeli troops killed a 7-month-old Palestinian boy after shooting at his parents’ vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was killed on Friday evening and his parents were injured while driving in the Tel Rumeida area south of Hebron city, according to the ministry.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the baby was seriously injured after being hit in the face by the same bullet that wounded his mother. He later died of his injuries. His father, Fahd Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University, was shot in the hand. They were traveling from Bethlehem to visit family in Hebron when soldiers opened fire, the agency reported.
The Israeli military has increased military operations in the West Bank since a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 that killed nearly 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has so far killed more than 72,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
The United Nations said last month that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the war began, at least 240 of them children.
The Israeli army said on Friday that soldiers fired at a vehicle that was perceived to be speeding towards them in the Hebron area. He said the soldiers responded with single shots, wounding three Palestinians who were evacuated for medical treatment. An initial investigation revealed that the injured were uninvolved civilians and the situation is under review.
At Al-Ahly Hospital in Hebron, the baby’s father told Associated Press reporters that a bullet hit the car’s windshield before piercing his right hand, then his son and wife in the back seat. Another bullet hit the hood of the vehicle, according to AP reporters who saw the car.
His wife is in critical condition with shrapnel near her heart, he said. The family told her that her son, who turned seven months old on Friday, was killed shortly before going to the funeral prayers.
The baby’s grandmother, Feryal Abu Heikal, was also in the car during the shooting and said they were driving near a checkpoint and stopped when they saw Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in the distance. As the forces fired at them, she initially thought they were warning shots before they were hit, she said.
“The scene was horrible to see a 7-month-old baby with a broken face,” she said. “What kind of army in the world does this? … What happened to my nephew cannot be easily forgotten.”
The funeral ceremony was held at noon in a nearby mosque. The tiny body was draped in the Palestinian flag as people lined up for prayers before it was taken in an ambulance for burial. At the ambulance, Abu Haikal was seen crying and hugging the baby’s half-brother.
The British Consulate in Jerusalem said it was “shocked and saddened” by Israel’s killing of the baby, calling on X for an “immediate and transparent investigation and accountability”.
Also on Saturday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said eight people were wounded in settler attacks in the town of Huwara, near Nablus, including inhaling tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets.
in March, Israeli soldiers fired in a car carrying a family in the northern West Bank, killing four people, including two children, the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said at the time.
Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians are rarely punished and were indicted in less than 1% of cases based on 2,427 complaints alleging wrongdoing between 2016 and 2024, according to the Israeli rights group Yesh Din.
More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 from Jordan and claimed by the Palestinians for a future state. The international community overwhelmingly considers the construction of Israeli settlements in these areas illegal and an obstacle to peace.
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By MAHMOUD ILLEAN, SAMY MAGDY and SAM MEDNICK Associated Press
Magdy reported from Cairo, Egypt and Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.
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