Sam Abu Haikal was seven months old. On Friday night, Israeli soldiers opened fire on his family’s car in Hebron. He was pulled out of it dead.
The family lives in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron’s old city, an area surrounded by Israeli soldiers, checkpoints, and settler outposts, and where Palestinians live under constant harassment and restrictions to their movement.
Since Friday, the Abu Haikal family has been reeling in shock, trying to piece together their loss. Samah Abu Haikal, Sam’s aunt, told Mondoweiss that Sam and his parents — her brother Fahd and his wife Dania — had been returning from a visit to family members in Bethlehem.
“They were very close to Tel Rumeida in an area called Wadi Hariyeh, where the Israeli army doesn’t usually set up checkpoints,” she said. Surprised by the patrol, Fahd stepped on the brakes suddenly, but the soldiers had already raised their rifles. “One of them fired a single bullet that struck the steering wheel and broke into fragments, sending shrapnel into the car,” she added.
The shrapnel struck little Sam in the face, killing him, she detailed.
‘Here, you can be killed with no consequences at all’
Sam’s mother, Dania Salameh, was wounded by another fragment that hit her near the jugular vein, while Fahd was wounded in the hand. “Dania is now in the hospital in intensive care, where she learned that her child had been killed,” Samah continued. “Doctors sedated her, while Fahd went out this morning [Saturday] to bury Sam himself, despite his wounded hand.”
According to Samah, “even though Tel Rumeida is dangerous at all times, this is still a huge shock for the entire family.” In Tel Rumeida, she said, “only residents are permitted entry, and when I go to visit my brother, soldiers often turn me back. And when I am allowed to go in I am scared all the time because of the sheer number of soldiers and settlers everywhere.”
Samah described life in Hebron as having gotten more dangerous over the past year, with Israeli settlers constantly harassing residents and even hurling objects at children. “The situation has become unbearable, and there seems to be very little attention worldwide,” she lamented. “Here, you can just be killed with no consequences at all.”
The Israeli army was quoted by Israeli media as saying that the soldiers “perceived a car accelerating towards them,” acknowledging that the victims were “uninvolved civilians” and that “the incident was under investigation.”‘
This is the second incident of its kind in the West Bank in less than three months, ever since Israeli soldiers opened fire on a car in Tubas last March, killing four members of a Palestinian family, including both parents and two children aged five and seven. The Israeli army also said at the time that it was investigating the incident and had opened a probe. To date, no Israeli soldier has faced any charges.
Sam’s death raises the number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in 2026 to 115. He was the 17th Palestinian child killed this year in the occupied West Bank.
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.
