On a quiet Sunday in the occupied West Bank, a family of six set out in their car for what should have been an ordinary drive home. By the time the gunfire stopped, four of them were dead, and two young boys were left behind to recount a moment that would shatter their lives forever.
Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces shot and killed Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, 37, his 35-year-old wife Waad, and two of their children, Mohammad, 7, and Othman, 5, in the village of Tammun.
The parents and the two young boys were shot in the head while inside their vehicle. Two other children in the car survived but were wounded by shrapnel.
One of the survivors, 12-year-old Khaled, described the final moments inside the vehicle from his hospital bed.
“We came under direct fire; we didn’t know the source,” he told Reuters, recalling the chaos that erupted inside the family car. “I heard my mother crying, my father praying but I didn’t hear the voices of my brothers. Then there was silence.”
According to the boy, the shooting left everyone in the vehicle dead except him and his brother Mustafa.
“Everyone in the car was martyred, except my brother Mustafa and me,” he said.
Khaled also alleged that soldiers pulled him out of the car after the shooting and beat him. He said the troops shouted, “We killed dogs.”
The Israeli military said its forces had been operating in Tammun to arrest Palestinians wanted for involvement in “terrorist” activity. In a statement, the army said a vehicle accelerated toward soldiers during the operation, prompting them to open fire after perceiving an “immediate threat”.
“During the operation, a vehicle accelerated toward the forces, who perceived an immediate threat to their safety and responded with gunfire. As a result, four Palestinians who were in the vehicle were killed,” the military said, adding that the circumstances of the incident are under review.
However, Palestinian officials and witnesses present a starkly different account.
Reporting from Tammun, Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said the family had simply been returning home after spending time outside the village.
“They were surprised to see undercover Israeli forces shoot towards their car nonstop,” she said, adding that the parents had no idea Israeli troops were nearby because they were driving a Palestinian vehicle.
According to Ibrahim, soldiers later removed the injured children from the vehicle and beat them, a claim that has further fuelled outrage among Palestinians.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the killings, describing them as part of a broader pattern of violence.
In a statement posted on X, the ministry said the deaths were “not isolated incidents” but rather part of a “comprehensive and systematic aggression” against Palestinians.
The tragedy in Tammun unfolded amid rising tensions across the occupied West Bank. Palestinian health authorities also reported that another Palestinian was killed overnight in an attack by Israeli settlers.
Rights groups and medics say settlers have increasingly targeted Palestinians while movement restrictions and military roadblocks have made it difficult for ambulances to reach victims quickly. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, settlers have killed at least five Palestinians in the West Bank since the United States-Israel war on Iran began on February 28.
Meanwhile, violence has also been escalating again in Gaza. Although a ceasefire formally came into effect in October, Gaza officials say Israeli strikes have continued intermittently.
On Sunday, an Israeli air attack in the western area of Nuseirat in central Gaza killed three people, a man, his pregnant wife and their son. Officials say the strike pushed the number of Palestinians killed in the enclave since the Iran war erupted to at least 26.
But in Tammun, the statistics fade beside the image of a shattered family car, and two young boys left alive to remember the cries, the prayers, and the gunfire that took their parents and brothers away.
