HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israeli troops killed a seven-month-old Palestinian baby boy after firing at his parents’ vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was killed Friday evening, and his parents were wounded while driving in the Tel Rumeida area south of Hebron City, according to the ministry.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the infant was critically wounded after being struck in the jaw
by the same bullet that injured his mother. He later died of his injuries. His father, Fahd Abdul Aziz 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.
Israel’s military has scaled up military operations in the West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack that killed some 1,200 people and took 251 people hostage, which triggered the war in Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has so far killed more than 72,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, is generally seen as reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts.
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. Forty-nine people have been killed since the start of this year, it said.
The infant’s funeral is expected later Saturday.
The army said an initial inquiry found that the injured were uninvolved civilians and said the situation is under review.
Israel's military said Friday that soldiers shot at a vehicle that was perceived to be accelerating toward them in the Hebron area. It said soldiers responded with single shots, wounding three Palestinians who were evacuated for medical treatment.
In March, Israeli soldiers fired on 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 penalized and were indicted in fewer than 1% of cases based on 2,427 complaints alleging wrongdoing between 2016 and 2024, according to 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 sought by the Palestinians for a future state.
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Magdy reported from Cairo, Egypt and Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.
