The Palestinian man, his wife, and their two children were killed after midnight by Israeli occupation forces in the town of Tammun, south of Tubas, while their two other children were injured by shrapnel. WAFA reported that Israeli special forces infiltrated the town, followed by military reinforcements arriving from the Ein Shibli checkpoint and the Tayasir checkpoint.
Forces opened fire on a vehicle, killing Ali Khaled Bani Odeh, 37, his wife Waad Othman Bani Odeh, 35, and their two children, Mohammed, 5, and Othman, 7. Their other two children, Mustafa, 8, and Khaled, 11, sustained minor shrapnel injuries to the head and face. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Israeli forces prevented its crews from reaching the injured inside the vehicle and forced them to leave the area before later allowing them to retrieve the four bodies–a man, a woman, and two children–along with the two injured children.
MK Cassif said after the visit,
A young family, two young parents and four children between the ages of 11 and 5—left their village of Tammun in the West Bank for Nablus to buy Eid al-Fitr clothes. But someone decided they wouldn’t return home safely. Four members of the family—the parents and two children—were killed by Israeli army fire, and two other children were wounded. Eleven-year-old Khaled asked one of the killers, “Do you love your parents?” The soldier replied, ‘Yes.’ Khaled then asked, ‘Why did you kill my father?’ The soldier responded by punching him in the face.
“This is exactly what our society looks like as it hurtles toward the abyss. Israeli society has become dominated by murder and hatred. A society that celebrates the death of tens of thousands—even thousands—of children. And in this case: an almost complete family stain of shame and disgrace,” he added.
MK Odeh said at the Knesset on Monday: “Look at Mustafa. Look into his eyes, into the blood and the tears. Look at him, for his parents and two brothers were killed by the Israeli army last Saturday in the occupied Palestinian territories. And yet, not a single occupation soldier involved in this massacre has even been investigated, and most likely, no one ever will. The problem is not only the terrible crimes themselves, but the complete impunity, complicity, and silence that allow them to continue.”
The occupation must end. Because we were all, every one of us, born to live.
According to Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, “This horrific incident is the latest in a pattern of increasing use of deadly force by Israeli forces against Palestinians and tragically we continue to see families and children paying the price. The Israeli military has failed to show that the family posed any threat when it was shot. We are deeply concerned that initial information and testimonies suggest the attack may amount to an extrajudicial execution.
“There must be an urgent thorough independent and impartial investigation into this appalling attack on the Bani Odeh family and all other unlawful killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces or settlers,” she added. Since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February, Israeli soldiers or state-backed settlers have killed 11 unarmed Palestinians across the occupied West Bank. According to OCHA, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank reached 1971 since 7 October 2023, including 233 children.