Israeli army killing of Palestinian family sends shockwaves throughout the West Bank

Khaled and Mustafa Bani Odeh, 11 and 8 years old, had a family until late Sunday. They were on their way back home to the Palestinian town of Tammoun in the northern West Bank when undercover Israeli forces opened fire on the family’s car, which carried two parents and four children. They had gone to Nablus on a shopping trip for the upcoming Eid holiday. 

The parents, Ali and Waad, as well as the younger two children, Othman and Muhammad (aged 6 and 5), were killed. Khaled and Mustafa, who tried to shield Muhammad, were injured with shrapnel to the face and head.

Later that day, Palestinians in Tammoun took part in the family’s funeral. Mustafa, the younger of the surviving pair, recounted the details of what happened to local media.

“We arrived near the Tubasi restaurant when soldiers began to open fire at us,” the boy said, with clear injuries on his face. He said that after the army finished firing on the family in the car, the soldiers “took us out of the car and beat us. Then we were taken to the ambulance.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that Israeli forces had blocked its crews from reaching the site, and later handed over the bodies of the four victims.

The mayor of Tammoun, Samir Bisharat, tells Mondoweiss that Ali, the father, was a construction worker in Israel and had a regular life with his family. “They never had any problems with the occupation or with anyone else,” he says. “Ali was known and respected in the community, and his wife, Waad, was very gentle.” 

Bisharat remarks that Waad was always dedicated to her family, and that their children were smart and polite. “They always excelled in the town’s summer camps, where I encountered them.”

Over the past two years, Tammoun has been the target of regular Israeli military raids. On one occasion in February 2025, an Israeli airstrike on the town killed ten people. Yet nothing could have prepared residents for the massacre that befell the Bani Odeh family, Bisharat says. “We never thought that an occupation raid would kill an entire family,” the mayor said.

A community in shock

Issam Abu Hassan, a close relative of the family, tells Mondoweiss that “Ali had been working in Israel for two months, and he had come home to prepare for the Eid holiday with his family.” A day before the massacre, Abu Hassan visited them. “Waad had been preparing the house for Eid, and the children were excited to go to Nablus to shop for the holiday.”

Leila Bani Odeh, Ali’s sister and aunt to the two slain children, says the family is devastated. “It’s a tragedy we can’t really comprehend yet,” Leila told Mondoweiss. “Waad and her children used to spend all the time at my parents’ house when Ali was away working, and the children loved to be with their grandparents and always refused to go home.”

One of the slain children, Othman, was visually impaired. “He would always stay beside his grandmother, and she always spoiled him with treats,” she said. “But my father, he adored Muhammad the most. He was his youngest grandchild. He hasn’t stopped asking me why I allowed his parents to take him shopping when he insisted that Muhammad should stay home with him,” she added, sobbing.

According to Leila, the surviving children have begun to understand what happened. “Mustafa came to me twice asking where his mother was, and then started crying,” she said. “We have no idea how to alleviate their pain. Their classmates and their teachers at school have come to visit them, and all neighbors have offered condolences, but the children mostly need psychological help right now.”

Abu Hassan says that the wound runs deeper than the family’s relatives. “The entire town is panicked and in shock. The street where it happened is a main street that all residents take every day,” he explains. “What happened to the Bani Odehs can happen to anyone.”

According to the Israeli Border Police, the special forces had been in Tammoun to arrest wanted Palestinians when they came across the Bani Odeh family’s car, which allegedly “accelerated toward the forces, which felt endangered and opened fire.”

The raiding Israeli force had entered the town earlier in the day undetected, Mayor Bisharat tells Mondoweiss, since the soldiers were undercover.

The Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry condemned the massacre, calling it “an extrajudicial execution” that aims to “forcibly expel” Palestinians from their lands. The Ministry accused Israel of taking advantage of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran while the world’s attention is elsewhere to advance its goals in the West Bank.

The head of the UN Human Rights office in Palestine, Ajith Sunghay, condemned the massacre, warning of a “pattern of utter disregard for Palestinian lives.”

The massacre in Tammoun raised the death toll of Palestinians killed in the West Bank that week to 10 people. A total of 29 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers since the start of the year, while well over 1,000 have been killed since October 2023.

The current ongoing escalation in the West Bank comes during Ramadan, contrary to the usual habit of Israeli forces attempting to avoid escalation during the holy month. According to analysts and observers, the mounting Israeli crackdown in the West Bank is part of Israel’s “decisive” strategy to create new and irreversible facts on the ground that would hasten the annexation of broad swathes of the West Bank to Israel.

This “decisive” campaign includes economic warfare and strangulation, road closures, blanket revocations of entry permits to Jerusalem, accelerating home demolitions, increasing nighttime arrest raids, undertaking judicial measures meant to legalize the annexation of the West Bank in piecemeal fashion, and the arming of settler groups who invade villages and kill residents in widescale pogroms and lynchings.

Qassam Muaddi
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss. He covers social, political, and cultural developments in Palestine, and has written for several outlets in English and French, including the Catholic Terre Sainte Magazine and other outlets. Follow him on Twitter/X at @QassaMMuaddi.