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 recalled.
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 indicated that Ali had just returned home after a period of work in Israel, and the children had begged him to take them shopping ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
Witnesses and residents have raised questions about the Israeli military's actions, with varying accounts provided regarding whether the family's vehicle had posed a threat at the time of the incident, further complicating an already tragic situation. Khaled, having lost his entire immediate family in an instant, serves as a heartbreaking reminder of the impact of ongoing violence in the region.
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 recalled.
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 indicated that Ali had just returned home after a period of work in Israel, and the children had begged him to take them shopping ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
Witnesses and residents have raised questions about the Israeli military's actions, with varying accounts provided regarding whether the family's vehicle had posed a threat at the time of the incident, further complicating an already tragic situation. Khaled, having lost his entire immediate family in an instant, serves as a heartbreaking reminder of the impact of ongoing violence in the region.
