Warning - this article contains a graphic description of a shooting.
In the few moments of silence after the shootings, before he was dragged from the family car, 12-year-old Khaled Bani Odeh thought he was the only member of his family left alive. Seconds before, his parents and two youngest brothers had been shot dead through the windscreen by Israeli forces, as they drove home after a family shopping trip in the occupied West Bank.
Among the dead was seven-year-old Othman - blind and disabled - killed while sitting on his mother's lap.
My mother cried out one last time before going quiet, Khaled said. My father recited the Shahada [the Islamic declaration of faith] as he died. When Israeli forces tried to drag his only surviving brother, Mustafa, from the car, Khaled said he tried to intervene. They pulled me out instead and began jumping on my back, he explained. Then they took me to a corner and questioned me about who had been in the car. I told them it was my mother and father. They accused me of lying and started beating me.
The family had been minutes from home when they were killed in the village of Tammun. They had just returned from shopping in Nablus, eager to prepare for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday. The Israeli army claimed that the family's vehicle accelerated towards the forces, prompting a lethal response. However, witnesses indicated that the car had stopped before any shots were fired.
As Khaled's grandmother, Najah, mourned her family, she pointed to the rising violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. They want to strip us out of our lands, she remarked, citing the increasing danger from both Israeli soldiers and settlers in the area.
From the date of the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 until mid-October 2025, the UN reported over a thousand Palestinian deaths, including a significant number of children. Echoing this tragic statistic, Khaled’s account stands as a harrowing testament to the human cost of ongoing conflict, leaving communities like his shattered and grieving.
