Israeli police killed two young Palestinian brothers and their parents in the occupied West Bank late on Saturday, opening fire on the family as they returned from a Ramadan shopping trip.
Mohammed, five, and Othman, seven, who was blind and had special needs, along with their mother, Waad Bani Odeh, 35, and father, Ali Bani Odeh, 37, were shot in the head and face while driving through their hometown of Tamoun. The family was on its way home from the nearby city of Nablus, where they had bought clothes for the upcoming Eid celebrations marking the end of Ramadan.
Khaled, 11, the oldest of the siblings and one of two survivors, recounted hearing his mother crying and his father praying before the gunfire stopped. He said Israeli border police dragged him from the wreckage, taunted him about the murders of his family, and attacked him. “One of them said, ‘we killed dogs,’” Khaled told Reuters. Both surviving boys sustained shrapnel wounds in the eye and the head, according to their grandmother, Najah al-Subhi.
“This family went to buy Eid necessities, to put a smile on those children’s faces,” said Mansour Abu Islam, a neighbour and cousin of Ali. “This is clear evidence that Palestinian lives have no value.”
Rising Israeli Violence Across the West Bank
The killing of the Bani Odeh family comes amid a surge of violence by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank since Israel and the United States launched a war on Iran at the end of February. Over the past two weeks, Israeli settlers have killed six civilians during incursions into Palestinian olive groves, villages, and grazing land. One man died after inhaling military-grade tear gas used by Israeli forces.
The deaths of the Bani Odeh family brought the number of Palestinians killed in recent settler attacks to 11. Another deadly incident occurred just hours earlier in Qusra, south of Nablus, where Israeli settlers shot and killed Amir Moatasem Odeh, 28, and stabbed his father, Moatasem Awda, who remains hospitalized in serious condition.
Israeli forces operate in the West Bank with near total impunity. According to legal data compiled by the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, the last attack that resulted in a homicide indictment was in 2019. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,400 people in the West Bank, including over 320 children and more than 30 women, according to UN figures. Israeli settlers have killed at least 44 other Palestinians during that period.
Eyewitness accounts indicate that the gunmen who killed the Bani Odeh family were part of an undercover unit. They were not in uniform and were driving a car with Palestinian license plates. Khaled said that Israeli forces opened fire without warning and, after the shooting, questioned him about who had been in the car before assaulting him.
All four victims were shot in the head and face. Ali, who was driving, was additionally shot in the chest and left hand, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israeli forces initially prevented ambulances from reaching the scene, and the military later towed the family car away, according to witness accounts and video shared on social media.
International and Local Reactions
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the killings as “a shocking act of extrajudicial execution” and described them as part of a broader campaign by Israeli forces and settlers aimed at the destruction and forced displacement of the Palestinian people.
A spokesperson for the Israeli police said the Bani Odeh family was killed during a joint operation with the Israeli military, claiming that forces opened fire on the vehicle when they “perceived an immediate threat” after it accelerated. Both the police and the military declined to answer questions about the threat posed by four unarmed children and their parents or whether the incident violated Israeli rules of engagement.
The military stated that its forces were in the area to “arrest wanted suspects believed to be involved in terrorist activity” and that the circumstances of the incident are “under review by the relevant authorities.” No arrests have been reported.
The killings coincided with Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza on Sunday that killed 12 people, including a pregnant woman and members of her family in Nuseirat, and a senior police officer along with eight others in Zawayda, according to medics and the interior ministry.
