June 7, 2026
A seven-month-old Palestinian baby has been killed and his parents wounded after an Israeli soldier opened fire on their family car in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, in an incident now under criminal investigation by Israel’s military police.
The baby, Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, was travelling with his family through the Tel Rumeida area on June 5 when Israeli troops opened fire on their vehicle.
Sam was critically wounded and later died.
His father, Fahd Abu Haikal, was shot in the hand, while his mother was also seriously wounded.
The Israeli military has acknowledged that the family members were uninvolved civilians.
What remains under investigation is why lethal force was used against their vehicle and whether the soldier involved acted in accordance with military rules.
For Sam’s family, however, no investigation can undo what happened.
A seven-month-old child is dead.
His parents were wounded.
And another Palestinian family is now demanding accountability for a shooting that the Israeli military itself says involved civilians who were not taking part in hostilities.
The military says soldiers believed the car was a threat
The Israeli military initially said soldiers believed the vehicle was accelerating towards them.
According to the military account, a soldier fired at the car because troops perceived it as an immediate threat.
But an initial examination subsequently determined that Sam and his parents were uninvolved civilians.
That finding led Israeli military authorities to escalate the matter from an internal review to a criminal investigation by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division.
When that investigation is completed, its findings are expected to be transferred to the Military Advocate General’s Office, which will determine whether further legal action is warranted.
The military has not publicly identified the soldier who fired the shot.
The central question is now whether the evidence supports the soldiers’ original claim that they reasonably believed the vehicle was threatening them.
Sam’s father strongly disputes that account.
Father says the car had already stopped
Fahd Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University, said he had stopped his vehicle after seeing Israeli soldiers in front of him.
According to his account, a soldier standing roughly 10 metres away then fired through the windscreen.
Fahd said the bullet travelled through his hand before striking his baby son and his wife.
Sam suffered catastrophic injuries and later died.
His father has rejected suggestions that what happened can simply be described as a tragic mistake.
His account is significant because it directly contradicts the initial explanation that the vehicle was accelerating towards soldiers.
Video footage that later emerged appears to show the family vehicle slowing as it approaches Israeli soldiers and coming to a stop around the time the shot was fired.
The footage has intensified scrutiny of the incident and the circumstances in which the soldier decided to use live ammunition.
Israeli military police are now responsible for determining exactly what happened.
A family journey ends in tragedy
The Abu Haikal family had reportedly been travelling from Bethlehem to visit relatives in Hebron.
Inside the vehicle were Fahd, his wife, baby Sam and other family members.
It was an ordinary family journey through one of the most heavily militarised and politically sensitive areas of the West Bank.
Minutes later, Sam was fatally wounded.
The incident demonstrates how quickly an encounter between Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers can become deadly in a territory filled with checkpoints, armed troops, settlements and frequent security operations.
Hebron is particularly tense.
Israeli settlers live in heavily protected areas within and around a much larger Palestinian population, while Israeli soldiers maintain an extensive security presence.
Palestinians regularly pass military positions as part of everyday life.
For civilians, that means even routine journeys can involve heavily armed soldiers making split-second decisions about whether a vehicle or person represents a threat.
When those decisions are wrong, the consequences can be irreversible.
Israel opens criminal investigation
The decision to open a Military Police Criminal Investigation Division probe is important.
It means the case has moved beyond an initial operational examination and into a formal criminal process.
Investigators are expected to examine testimony, video footage, soldiers’ accounts, the position of the vehicle, the circumstances leading up to the shot and whether military procedures governing the use of lethal force were followed.
Reports have also indicated investigators may examine whether soldiers properly assisted the wounded family following the shooting.
Once the investigation is completed, the Military Advocate General’s Office can decide whether disciplinary action, criminal charges or no further action should follow.
That outcome will be closely watched.
Palestinian families and human rights organisations have repeatedly argued that investigations into killings involving Israeli troops too rarely result in meaningful accountability.
Israel maintains that its military justice system investigates suspected wrongdoing and prosecutes personnel when sufficient evidence exists.
Sam’s case will now become another test of that system.
A seven-month-old baby cannot pose a military threat
The most disturbing fact remains the simplest one.
Sam was seven months old.
Whatever soldiers believed about the vehicle approaching them, the eventual victims were a baby and his parents — civilians whom Israel’s own preliminary inquiry found were uninvolved.
That distinction matters.
Israeli soldiers operate in a difficult and sometimes dangerous environment. Palestinian attacks against soldiers and civilians have occurred in the West Bank, including incidents involving vehicles.
Troops therefore have legitimate security concerns.
But those security concerns do not remove the obligation to distinguish between an actual imminent threat and civilians simply travelling through an area.
The use of lethal force must be based on more than fear alone.
When a mistaken assessment results in the death of an infant, it deserves the highest possible level of scrutiny.
Violence continues across the West Bank
Sam’s killing also comes against the backdrop of escalating violence throughout the occupied West Bank.
Israeli military operations have intensified, while Palestinian attacks and Israeli settler violence have also contributed to an increasingly unstable environment.
The civilian toll has been severe.
Palestinian communities have faced shootings, raids, demolitions, displacement and settler attacks, while Israelis have also been killed in Palestinian attacks.
The cycle has created an atmosphere in which armed encounters are increasingly common and civilians are frequently caught in the middle.
But describing the situation as complicated cannot become a substitute for accountability in individual cases.
Every incident still has facts.
Every shooting still requires justification.
And every civilian death deserves an investigation based on what actually happened rather than assumptions about the wider conflict.
What happens next?
The military police investigation will now attempt to establish whether the soldier who fired at the Abu Haikal family committed a criminal offence.
The evidence available publicly already presents two sharply different versions of the incident.
The Israeli military initially said the car appeared to be accelerating towards soldiers.
Sam’s father says he had stopped.
Video footage appears to show the vehicle slowing and stopping near the soldiers.
And the Israeli military’s own preliminary examination concluded that the people inside the vehicle were uninvolved civilians.
Those facts make the investigation particularly important.
If the soldier genuinely faced an imminent threat, investigators will need to explain what created that impression.
If the vehicle had stopped and posed no threat, the question becomes far more serious: why was a live round fired into a family car?
For Sam’s parents, the legal process will never be enough to repair what happened.
Their son had lived for only seven months.
He was travelling with his family.
He was not a fighter.
He was not involved in the conflict.
And he was not a threat.
Whether the shooting ultimately results in criminal charges will now be determined by Israel’s military justice system.
But the most important fact is already undisputed:
Seven-month-old Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was killed by Israeli gunfire while travelling in a civilian vehicle with his family.
For Palestinians asking whether civilian lives receive equal protection and accountability under occupation, what happens next will matter almost as much as the investigation itself.