Israeli troops have killed a Palestinian couple and two children in the West Bank village of Tammun as violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory continues to surge.
IDF soldiers opened fire on the family’s car overnight, killing Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, Waad Othman Bani Odeh, and their two young children: Othman, 7, who had special needs and was blind, and Mohammed, 5. Two other children were injured but survived the attack.
One of the survivors, 11-year-old Khaled, said an Israeli soldier removed him from the vehicle and beat him after his family was killed. “He said, ‘We killed some dogs,’ removed me from the vehicle and beat me,” the boy said, according to Haaretz.
“After that, they took me to a Jeep and searched me. They asked me, ‘who was with you in the car?’ When I said, ‘my mother, father and brothers,’ he started yelling at me, calling me ‘liar, liar,'” the boy added.
Haaretz reported that local residents said an IDF special forces unit entered the village, driving a car with Palestinian plates, followed by backup from nearby checkpoints. They said the family was returning from shopping when they were stopped by the IDF and shot.
Locals also denied claims from the IDF that the car the Odehs were driving accelerated toward Israeli forces. “The army’s version that the father accelerated is completely absurd. A father with a mother and four children – who would accelerate? Especially since it was a covert unit in a Palestinian-plated car. This is cold-blooded murder,” Magdi Bani Odeh, a relative of the family, told Haaretz.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces were in the village as part of an operation to arrest Palestinians wanted for alleged “terrorist” activity.
The IDF killing of the Odeh family comes amid a major uptick in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians following the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least five Palestinians have been killed by Jewish settlers since February 28.
