TAMMUN, West Bank — Israeli soldiers fired on a car carrying a family in the northern West Bank, killing four people including two children, the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said that Ali and Waed Odeh, and two of their four children, were shot in the head. The Odehs’ two surviving children had shrapnel wounds that were examined by first responders once they were granted access, the group said, accusing Israel of delaying ambulances dispatched to the scene.
Israel’s military and police said in a joint statement Sunday that forces opened fire after a car accelerated toward them in Tammun. They said that the forces were pursuing suspects accused of “terrorist activity” and that the shooting was under investigation.
Najah al-Subhi, who lost her son and grandchildren, told the Associated Press the family had gone to a mall in Nablus to buy clothes for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this week. She said the two surviving children sustained shrapnel wounds in the eye and the head.
The Israeli rights group B’tselem said the Odeh family’s car was riddled with bullets and Israeli forces had “violently interrogated” one of the surviving children who was wounded.
“No effective mechanism exists to hold those responsible to account,” the group said.
Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians are rarely penalized and were indicted in fewer than 1% of cases based on 2,427 complaints alleging wrongdoing between 2016 and 2024, according to Israeli rights group Yesh Din.
The members of the Odeh family were the latest casualties in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli settlers and soldiers had previously shot and killed at least eight Palestinians since the start of the Iran war.
Since Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Israeli authorities have restricted movement across the West Bank, intermittently closing hundreds of gates and checkpoints on roads used by residents, ambulances and commercial traffic. The barriers have tightened movement and made emergency response significantly more difficult, the Red Crescent told the Associated Press last week.
Yesh Din said Wednesday that it had documented 109 incidents of settler violence in the West Bank in dozens of Palestinian communities since the start of the war.
The toll is lower than at this point in 2025 — a record year for violence that began with Israel invading northern West Bank cities that the military said were militant strongholds. Israeli forces still maintain a presence there.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has recorded 18 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since the start of 2026, including eight by Israeli settlers.
In the Gaza Strip
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, at least 12 Palestinians, including two boys, a pregnant woman and eight police officers, were killed Sunday by Israeli airstrikes, hospital authorities said.
A strike Sunday morning hit a house in the urban refugee camp of Nuseirat in central Gaza and killed four people, including a couple in their 30s and their 10-year son, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The woman had been pregnant with twins, the hospital said.
The fourth fatality, a 15-year-old neighbor, was taken to Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat.
“We were sleeping and got up to the strike of a missile. The strike was strong,” said Mahmoud al-Muhtaseb, a neighbor. “There was no prior warning.”
Another strike Sunday afternoon hit a police vehicle on the Salah al-Din south-north route at the entrance of the central town of Zawaida, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said.
The strike killed eight police officers, including Col. Iyad Ab Yousef, a senior police official in central Gaza, the ministry said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies, confirmed the toll. It said 14 others were wounded.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on either strike.
Hamas oversees a police force that maintained a high degree of public security after the militants seized power in Gaza in 2007, while also cracking down on dissent.
The police largely melted away during the war as Israeli forces seized large areas of Gaza and targeted Hamas security forces with airstrikes.
But following an October ceasefire, they have reappeared in Gaza streets and reasserted control in areas not controlled by the Israeli military.
Sunday’s deaths were the latest fatalities among Palestinians in the coastal enclave since the ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the ceasefire has still seen almost daily Israeli fire. Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near military-held zones, killing more than 650 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Israel says it has responded to violations of the ceasefire or targeted wanted militants. But about half of those killed have been women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
They were among more than 72,200 Palestinians killed in the war, which was triggered when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the ministry’s count. The militant attack killed over 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.
The Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.
Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to that and other violations. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.
Metz and Tuffaha write for the Associated Press and reported from the West Banks cities of Ramallah and Tammun, respectively. AP writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
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