Sam Abu Haikal, killed by IDF.
Earlier this month in Hebron, in the southern West Bank, a seven‑month‑old Palestinian baby, Sam Abu Haikal, was killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on his family’s car — a single bullet passing through the father’s hand before striking the infant and his mother. The car was carrying the boy and several relatives, including his grandmother, when they approached the soldiers.
This was yet another in a series of incidents in which Palestinian civilians were unjustifiably killed, revealing a daily architecture of violence and fear under Israeli occupation — a reality that statistics alone cannot convey. The Israeli military expressed “deep sorrow for any harm caused” and promised to investigate the incident.
However, almost none of those responsible for such grievous acts have ever been punished, despite repeated assurances of justice from Israeli authorities. Sam’s father, Mr. Abu Haikal, said, “There is no such thing as an investigation in Israel. They shoot and kill and there’s no punishment.” His grandmother lamented that the soldiers did not even fire a warning shot — a gesture increasingly withheld from Palestinians, who are treated as expendable victims of a grievous conflict.
In addition to those killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) the United Nations has documented systematic abuse, property destruction, and fatal attacks by armed settlers, leading to the displacement of herding and Bedouin communities from their homes. The United Nations reports that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out its deadly raid against Israeli civilians.
According to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, between 2018 and 2022 the IDF investigated 107 cases involving the killing of Palestinians by soldiers in the West Bank. Over that period, only one soldier was ultimately charged — for killing a Palestinian and severely wounding another — and he received a sentence of three months of community service as part of a plea bargain.
Describing indiscriminate killings in the buffer zone by a system that no longer sees Palestinians as people, Capt. Yotam Vilk, an Israeli armored corps officer, declared in 2025, “There ‘s no such things as ‘means, intent, and ability’ in Gaza…It’s just: a suspicion of walking where it’s not allowed.”
Statistics from the U.N. Human Rights Office show that between October 7, 2023, and October 2025, at least 213 children were killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank. The situation is even more dire in Gaza, where 21,289 children were killed and 44,500 were injured, from October 7, 2023 to February 3, 2026, according to UNICEF. The agency warns that Gaza has become “an affront to our shared humanity,” a place where children are “killed, maimed, and displaced” at a rate almost without precedent in modern conflict.
It is not possible to witness the mass killing of children and still speak of “managing” a conflict. One must confront the unbearable fact that politics and politicians have normalized the killing of the most vulnerable. More gravely, it suggests that a moral compass has been irreversibly broken.
Years ago, I met in New York Stéphane Hessel, who had come to the city as a member of the Russell Tribunal, which was assessing the actions of Israel’s government in Gaza and the West Bank. Hessel had been a Resistance fighter, a survivor of Buchenwald, and a diplomat who helped shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I asked him how, as a Jew, he could participate in a tribunal so critical of the Israeli government. Without hesitation he told me, “Because I love Israel.” Hessel reminded us that loving a people or a nation does not mean excusing its abuses; it means holding it to the standards it claims for itself.
