Israeli Military Kills Palestinian Baby and Wounds Parents in West Bank

This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org

By Jessica Corbett

Gunfire from at least one Israeli soldier killed a 7-month-old Palestinian boy and injured his parents, who were traveling in their vehicle in the occupied West Bank on Friday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The Palestinian National Authority’s WAFA reported that Sam Fahd Abu Haikal lived in Bethlehem with his mother and father, Fahd Abdul Aziz Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University. The family—which also included the baby’s grandmother and 11-year-old sibling—intended to visit Hebron when they were struck by at least one bullet that left both parents with “moderate injuries” and ultimately killed the infant, who “succumbed on Friday evening to critical wounds.”

As Reuters detailed:

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces told CBS News that soldiers “perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them” and responded by firing single shots, which injured three Palestinians who were evacuated for medical treatment. The spokesperson added that an initial inquiry “found that those injured were uninvolved civilians,” and that the IDF “expresses deep sorrow for any harm caused to uninvolved individuals.”

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Fahd Abdul Aziz Abu Haikal told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that “the soldier was about 10 meters away from me. He saw me, he saw my wife, and the children. The car windows were not dark, it was daylight, and everything was clear. You can’t say he didn’t see that it was a family.”

The father added that “this case must not be closed without an investigation and without accountability. At least I don’t intend to give up.”

The baby’s death sparked a fresh wave of criticism against the IDF, which is widely accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip has killed over 72,000 people.

Since October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have also ramped up attacks in the illegally occupied West Bank, killing over 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 240 children, according to the United Nations.

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In a Saturday statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, condemned the baby’s killing as well as a deadly Israeli attack on a wedding in Gaza.

“The murder of a 7-month-old baby by Israeli forces in the illegally occupied West Bank and an Israeli massacre at a wedding in Gaza are horrific crimes that should shock the conscience of every person,” CAIR said. “No military force that repeatedly kills children, medical workers, journalists, and civilians—using American taxpayer-supplied weapons—should continue to enjoy impunity or the support of our own government.”

“We call on our government and the international community to stop enabling these atrocities,” the group said, “and to take concrete action to protect Palestinian civilians, end the occupation, and uphold international law.”

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