Four members of a Palestinian family were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank town of Tammun overnight on Sunday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, 37, his wife Waad Othman Bani Odeh, 35, and their two children, Othman, seven, and Mohammed, five, were shot dead. The two other children in the family, Khaled, 11, and Mustafa, eight, were injured by shrapnel.
One of the children said Israeli troops fired directly on their car. “I tried to move my brother Mohammed but I couldn’t. I thought I was going to die,” the child said in comments included in a statement issued by Tammun's local authorities. The family was said to be on their way to buy clothes for the Eid holiday.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its medics were prevented from the reaching the family by Israeli forces. They were only allowed to return later to retrieve the bodies, it added.
Witnesses told Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli special forces entered the town, followed by reinforcements from nearby checkpoints. Israeli police and the military said “the circumstances of the incident are under review”.
The killing of the family is part of a sharp increase in Israeli violence in the West Bank since the Iran war broke out. At least five Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and the area is under a tight military lockdown. Troops and settlers storm Palestinian territory on a daily basis.
After the killing, Palestinian-Israeli politician Ayman Odeh said in a post on X that the Israeli military and settlers “continue the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank”.
“Really, what else is there to say? I’m just asking: anyone who truly cares about all our lives here must scream this scream before things get even worse, before we all pay the price," he added. "The occupation is terror. Enough with the damned occupation.”
Left-wing Israeli activist Yariv Oppenheimer condemned the incident in a post on X. “A Palestinian family – two parents and two children – was shot to death last night on their way to buy holiday clothes in the town of Tammun. A special army unit sprayed the vehicle with gunfire. The parents and two children were killed. Two children were injured. No suspect arrest procedure, no obligation to identify a real threat before opening fire, no justice. A family.”
