Hebron: Palestinian baby, 7 months, killed by Israeli soldiers; father breaks silence

A seven-month-old baby died after being shot by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. The infant, Sam Abu Haikal, was hit in the face by a bullet fired at his family's car as they were traveling to visit relatives.

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The soldier signaled me to stop. I stopped the car and raised my hands on the steering wheel. Immediately after, they opened fire on the vehicle.

Fahd Abu Haikal, the baby's father and a professor at Bethlehem University, recounted the horrific event from his hospital bed. He told reporters that he had stopped his car immediately after soldiers signaled him to halt. "The soldier was about ten meters from me. He saw me, he saw my wife and my children. The windows were not tinted, it was broad daylight and everything was perfectly visible," he stated, according to reports from the Associated Press, Haaretz, and The Guardian. He added that the projectile passed through his son's face and then his wife's face before becoming lodged near her heart.

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The soldier was about ten meters from me. He saw me, he saw my wife and my children. The windows were not tinted, it was broad daylight and everything was perfectly visible. One cannot say that he did not see that it was a family.

The Israeli military confirmed the incident but offered a different account. They stated that soldiers fired at a vehicle that "seemed to be accelerating towards them." An initial investigation concluded that the injured were "non-involved civilians," and the situation is under review. The father vehemently denied this version, asserting that he had stopped as ordered and that there was no clearly marked checkpoint, only soldiers in the street.

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The projectile penetrated the child's face from the right and exited from the left, then passed directly through his mother's face and exited the other side, with shrapnel lodging near her heart.

This incident occurs amidst a surge of violence in the West Bank, where over 240 children have reportedly been killed since the start of the war. The Palestinian official news agency WAFA also corroborated the father's account, confirming the baby was hit in the face by the same bullet that injured his mother.

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Our soldiers fired at a vehicle that seemed to be accelerating towards them.