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 on 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.

The United Nations said last month that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since 2023, at least 240 of them children. Forty-nine people have been killed since the start of this year, it said.

The army said an initial inquiry found that the injured were uninvolved civilians and said the situation is under review.

Israel's military said on Friday that soldiers shot at a vehicle that was perceived to be accelerating towards 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 penalised and were indicted in fewer than 1 percent 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. (AP)




Edited by Azam Khan