Seven-month-old Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was buried in Hebron Saturday, a day after he was shot in the head while travelling home with his family in Palestine’s West Bank. The Israeli military says a soldier opened fire after troops believed a vehicle was “accelerating towards them.” Sam’s family says the car had already stopped and posed no threat.
Between these two accounts is the death of a seven-month-old baby whose funeral procession wound through Hebron less than a day later. His father, Fahd, was joined by a group of mourners as he carried his small shrouded body wrapped in a Palestinian flag to the graveyard.
Mourners pray over the body of seven-month-old Palestinian baby Sam Fahd Abu Haikal in the West Bank city of Hebron, Saturday (AP Photo)While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have acknowledged that those injured were “uninvolved civilians” and expressed “deep sorrow”, Sam’s family has rejected the explanation, arguing that the shooting could not have been a mistake.
Two versions
On Friday evening, Fahd Abu Haikal was driving home with his wife, two children and his mother after a day out in Bethlehem, reported BBC. They were nearing an Israeli checkpoint in Hebron’s Tel Rumeida area when the shooting occurred.
In a statement posted on X, the IDF said soldiers conducting operations in the area “perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them”. It said a soldier responded by firing single shots at the vehicle, adding that an initial inquiry found those injured were uninvolved civilians. The military said the incident was under review and expressed “deep sorrow for any harm caused to uninvolved individuals”.
The family’s version of events differs sharply.
Fahd Abu Haikal, 41 shows a photo of his seven-month-old Palestinian baby boy Sam, who was killed on Friday when Israeli soldiers fired at the vehicle carrying him and his parents in Tel Rumeida (AP Photo)
According to accounts given by Fahd Abu Haikal and his mother, Firyal Abu Haikal, to BBC and The New York Times, the vehicle had already stopped when soldiers approached. Fahd told BBC that he “raised his hands after bringing the car to a halt.”
What followed, the family says, were gunshots.
‘It can’t be a mistake’
Fahd told BBC that a soldier standing roughly 10m away fired towards the vehicle. “The bullet penetrated the front windshield, went through my arm, and then struck my son in the head and my wife in the face,” he said.
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Sam died later in hospital. His mother remains under treatment.
Firyal Abu Haikal (the baby’s grandmother), speaking to NYT, said she heard two gunshots after the car stopped. “At least give a warning shot,” she told the media. “We would have reversed and left. Instead, they shot us straight away.”
Child care bag of seven month old Palestinian baby boy Sam Fahd Abu Heikal, who was killed on Friday. (AP Photo)
The IDF’s statement talks of a soldier firing after perceiving a threat. But the military has also acknowledged that those struck by the gunfire were civilians not involved in any hostile activity.
For Sam’s father, those two conclusions are difficult to reconcile.
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Rejecting the military’s expression of regret, Fahd told BBC: “When more than one bullet is fired, when there’s no warning shot and no warning at all, it can’t be a mistake!”
A flashpoint in the West Bank
The shooting took place in Tel Rumeida, one of Hebron’s most sensitive areas, where Israeli settlers live among Palestinian residents under heavy military protection.
The incident comes amid a broader surge in violence across the West Bank since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
According to figures cited by the BBC from the Palestinian health ministry, more than 1,000 Palestinians (including both militants and civilians) have been killed in the West Bank during that period, At least 44 Israelis, civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations.
