Video Evidence Shows IDF Brutally Murdered Seven-Month-Old Baby in Hebron
Video evidence has surfaced of the murder of a seven-month-old baby by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank. The footage shows the killing was carried out with deliberate cruelty.
The recording appears to contradict the Israeli military’s report of the shooting that killed seven-month-old Sam Abu Haikal while in his mother’s arms, showing the family’s car slowing near a military post before soldiers opened fire.
Last Friday, the killing of the infant by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank sparked outrage after troops fired on the family’s vehicle despite it having complied with orders to stop. Sam was killed, and his mother, Daniyah Abu Haikal, and father, Fahed Abu Haikal, were both wounded.
Israeli occupation forces previously stated that its troops “spotted a vehicle speeding towards them” and one soldier “responded by firing a single shot towards the vehicle.” However, footage obtained by the Israeli human rights information centre B’Tselem contradicts the IDF claim that the Abu Haikal family’s car was speeding towards soldiers when they fired.
“The footage clearly shows that the Israeli soldiers fired at the car while it was slowing down to a stop,” B’Tselem said in a statement. “The car was far from the soldiers and posed no danger to them whatsoever.”
In another video obtained by B’Tselem, seven-month-old Sam’s father is seen after his son was shot. Fahd Abu Haikal holds the baby while trying to stem the bleeding from his head with his hands, whilst Daniyah, also wounded by the gunfire while holding her son, is seen sitting on the ground next to the car.
Fahd said a bullet pierced his hand and hit his son, who was being held by his mother in the back seat. The family, including the couple’s 11-year-old son and Fahd’s mother, were driving through Hebron when they were stopped by soldiers, he said.
Although the video has no audio, and it is unclear precisely when the soldier opened fire on the vehicle, the clip appears to corroborate Fahd’s statement. He told Haaretz: “The soldier signalled for me to stop. I brought the car to a complete stop and raised my hands to the steering wheel. Immediately after that, they opened fire on the vehicle.
“I stopped as ordered, and then they shot at the car,” he added. “There was no clear checkpoint, just soldiers standing on the road. I stopped when asked, and then the shooting began. The car was completely stationary when he opened fire on us, not moving at all. A seven-month-old baby was killed in cold blood. He did not deserve this.”
The footage released by B’Tselem also shows Israeli soldiers reluctant to help the family, instead standing by idly as civilians rushed to assist the wounded child and his parents.
The UN stated in March that more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces and illegal settlers alongside the Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip. At least 240 of them were children, and 49 people have been killed this year.
Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians are rarely punished and are charged in fewer than 1 per cent of cases based on 2,427 complaints alleging wrongdoing filed between 2016 and 2024, according to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din. “In the past two and a half years, Israel has killed tens of thousands of children in Gaza and the West Bank,” said B’Tselem executive director Yuli Novak. “The immunity provided by the international community has led to a reality where, under Israeli rule, Palestinian lives are utterly worthless – not even those of a seven-month-old baby.”