In the few moments of silence after the shootings, before he was dragged from the family car, 12-year-old Khaled Bani Odeh thought he was the only member of his family left alive.

Seconds before, his parents and two youngest brothers had been shot dead through the windscreen by Israeli forces, as they drove home after a family shopping trip in the occupied West Bank.

Among the dead was six-year-old Othman - blind and disabled - killed while sitting on his mother's lap.

My mother cried out one last time before going quiet, Khaled said. My father recited the Shahada [the Islamic declaration of faith] as he died.

When Israeli forces tried to drag his only surviving brother, Mustafa, from the car, Khaled said he tried to intervene. They pulled me out instead and began jumping on my back, he said. Then they took me to a corner and questioned me about who had been in the car. I told them it was my mother and father. They accused me of lying and started beating me.

The family of 37-year-old Ali Khaled Bani Odeh and his 35-year-old wife Waad had been minutes from home when they were killed, in the village of Tammun, near Tubas, just after midnight on Saturday.

Relatives said Ali had recently arrived home in Tammun after six weeks working on a construction site in Israel, and the boys had begged him to take them shopping in Nablus, ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday due at the end of this week.

On that night, as they returned from shopping and dinner in Nablus, the Israeli army said its soldiers were operating in Tammun to arrest people suspected of terrorist activity. They claimed the Bani Odeh family's car had accelerated towards the forces, who sensed danger and responded by shooting.

However, witnesses challenge this account. A nearby resident, who was looking out when the incident took place, stated the family car had just turned left into his street and had come to a complete halt before any shots were fired. No warning was given. The firing directly targeted the car. I just heard the woman in the car screaming, he recounted.

Amid increasing scrutiny of military actions in Palestinian territories, and the rising death toll among civilians, advocates argue for immediate accountability and a reevaluation of the engagement policies>

Yair Lapid, head of the Israeli opposition party Yesh Atid, criticized the government for failing to apologize to the family. A seven-year-old boy with special needs should not die in the wars of adults, he remarked.

According to UN statistics, from October 2023 to mid-March 2026, over 1,000 Palestinians have died in the West Bank, including hundreds of children. This incident further illuminates the complex and tragic dynamics of the ongoing conflict.