Israeli fire kills Palestinian infant near Hebron checkpoint, family disputes account

A split-second shooting near a Hebron checkpoint left a seven-month-old Palestinian boy dead and his parents wounded, then quickly opened a deeper question that has shadowed Israeli military actions in the West Bank: whether the official account matches what civilians on the ground experienced.

Palestinian health officials identified the infant as Sam Fahd Abu Haikal. They said he was killed at the scene in the Tel Rumeida area south of Hebron, while his parents were wounded. The parents were in moderate condition. The episode unfolded Friday evening, June 5, 2026, near Checkpoint 17, in an area where Israeli settlers live under heavy military protection among Palestinian residents.

The baby’s grandmother gave a sharply different account. She said the family was driving near the checkpoint when they saw Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in the distance and stopped the car. According to her, shots were fired toward them and the family initially believed they were warning shots. She said one bullet struck the baby in the face, passed through his head, hit the mother’s cheek and grazed the father’s finger.

The Israeli military said soldiers perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them and fired single shots at it during operational activity in the Hebron area. It said three Palestinians were wounded and evacuated for medical treatment, and that an initial inquiry found the injured were “uninvolved civilians.” The military said the case remains under review.

Tel Rumeida has long been one of Hebron’s most volatile neighborhoods, a place where Israeli settlers live under heavy military protection amid a large Palestinian population. The area’s tensions have become part of a broader West Bank deterioration that has accelerated alongside the war in Gaza.

That wider context has sharpened scrutiny of military conduct and accountability. The United Nations Human Rights Office said in 2026 that more than 36,000 Palestinians had been forcibly displaced amid increased violence in the West Bank. Earlier United Nations reporting cited just under 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, a figure that underscores how deeply the settlement project has reshaped the territory.

For many Palestinians, the killing of Sam Fahd Abu Haikal will be measured not only by the loss of an infant, but by whether the investigation tests the military’s version against the family’s account and produces a result the public can trust.