A Palestinian family is demanding justice after their baby son, Sam, was killed by gunfire from an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. The child was killed by a single shot as the family travelled by car last Friday. His parents have said they will fight for justice for their son, even as they acknowledge how difficult it is to pursue complaints against the Israeli military. Israeli military police have since launched a criminal investigation into the shooting.
The family had been driving to the house of Sam's grandmother in Tel Rumeida, a Palestinian neighbourhood that sits alongside an Israeli settlement enclave considered illegal under international law. A group of Israeli soldiers were operating in the streets outside the area at the time. The family drove up a hill and reached an intersection, where, according to Sam's father, Fahad, he brought the car to a stop. Fahad has stressed that the Israeli checkpoints in that part of the city are normally positioned much further up the hill than where the soldier was standing.
Fahad says that as he stopped, he gave a clear and visible sign of surrender. Despite that gesture, a single shot was fired toward the vehicle. The bullet first pierced Fahad's hand before striking his baby son in the head. When he saw the blood, he said, he immediately understood that it had been a bullet. In an instant, what had been an ordinary family journey to see a relative had turned into a tragedy.
The same gunfire continued on its path through the car. It injured Sam's mother in the face and neck as she sat in the back seat, and a further bullet struck her in the chest. She described being wounded herself, but said her deepest pain was for her child rather than for her own injuries. She spoke of the anguish of surviving while her son did not, saying simply that she had lost her little son.
For Fahad, the loss has been almost impossible to bear. He recalled remaining beside his son until the very last moment and holding him close. He described the cruelty of embracing the same child with a warm body in the morning and a cold body by the evening. The family has chosen to remember Sam as he was in life, a happy and inquisitive baby with what they described as a clear and innocent smile, rather than only by the way he died.
The Israeli military originally said its soldiers had opened fire because they perceived that the car was accelerating towards them, and it expressed deep sorrow for any harm caused to the family. It has since announced a criminal investigation, to be handled by Israeli military police, which could ultimately recommend charges against those involved. That shift, from an initial account of a perceived threat to a formal inquiry, leaves open the central question of how a stopped car with a family inside came to be fired upon.
The family's pursuit of accountability faces long odds. The Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din says that fewer than one percent of complaints brought against Israeli soldiers by Palestinians ever result in indictments. The difficulty is compounded on the ground in Hebron, where witnesses have been wary of speaking on camera. Some of those who saw what happened fear that they could be arrested or detained by Israeli authorities if they were to speak up about it.
Even with those obstacles, Fahad has insisted that he must make his voice heard in order to secure some measure of accountability for what happened to his son. He framed his determination around everything that had been taken from the family in a single moment. All of the innocent dreams, he said, had died together with his son, and he vowed to take every step he could in the search for justice.