With Chilling Composure, an 11-year-old Palestinian Boy Recounts His Family's Final Moments
Sunday, March 22, 2026 at 08:12PM Khaled, 11, and his brother Mustafa, 8, lost their parents and two brothers when Israeli Border Police shot them to death during a Ramadan evening outing. First-hand testimony from one of the two survivors of the Bani Odeh family
by Gideon Levy and Alex Levac 20 March 2026 Haaretz magazine
Khaled near the site where his family was killed this week. He was taken to a police jeep and was beaten. Credit: Alex Levac
We're standing on a street corner. From here the family's Kia proceeded down the street and turned left, toward their home. And here, behind the wall next to the small but now-shuttered Nablus Restaurant – hummus, falafel and ful – Border Police officers hid before emerging to fire a lethal volley at the car.
It was 1:30 A.M. this past Sunday. The Kia's windows were open; it was quite easy to see who was inside. A family. Parents and their four children. A blind child sat on his mother's knees, in front next to the driver; his three siblings were in the back. The officers could have shouted at them to stop the car – and they would have heard.
But these Border Police officers, from the "elite" undercover Mista'arvim unit – which three months ago, in full view of CCTV cameras, essentially executed two suspects after they had raised their hands in surrender – had different ideas.
In the West Bank, in order for soldiers to stop a civilian car that for some reason is not to their liking, it's apparently permitted to spray the vehicle with bullets, with no prior warning, and even to kill its innocent occupants. According to Aref Daraghmeh, a field researcher for B'Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, between 50 and 70 rounds were pumped into the Kia.
Khaled, right, and his younger brother Mustafa. Khaled says that the only time he cried since everything happened was when he saw his loved one's bodies splayed out at the hospital in Tubas. Mustafa also cried. Credit: Alex Levac
On Monday morning, not long after the incident, we were at the corner where everything happened. All that remains on the street, in mute testimony to the horror, are green-tinted shards of glass from the car – which the officers confiscated, complicating the internal police investigation into the case.
Opposite us on the sidewalk stands 11-year-old Khaled Bani Odeh. He's describing, with gestures and words, stage by stage, the massacre of his family, before his eyes, a day and a half earlier. Here's where the car stopped; the officers were standing over there, unleashing a hellish hail of gunfire at the car. Here is where they beat him after he emerged from the vehicle of death; over there they made him stand with his face to the wall and shouted at him that he was a liar – just minutes after annihilating his family. They thought Khaled was someone else – a wanted youth whom they were pursuing.
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Khaled speaks mechanically, automatically, like someone who has described this countless times before, using words that depict hell and articulate, adult language, his features devoid of expression. No tears, no grief, no rage, no horror. Only the emotionless, frozen gaze of someone who is so severely battered by shock that he cannot digest the implications of what he's saying.
It was the same earlier, too, when we sat together for some time on the plastic chairs in front of his house, as hundreds of women from across the West Bank poured in to console the remaining members of Khaled's family, especially his paternal grandmother, Najah, who will henceforth be a substitute for his mother. The men gathered elsewhere, in the town's diwan. Khaled was at the entrance to the house, as though waiting for someone to arrive.
Mustafa, 8, leans over one of his family members' bodies at the funeral this week. Credit: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters
It's a long trip from Tel Aviv to Tammun. The Waze app promises 45 minutes, but its based on a reality concocted without checkpoints or the locked entry gates of Palestinian towns and villages en route. The trip actually takes two hours and obligates us to navigate the entire length of the city of Nablus, from west to east. Tammun is located northeast of the city, on the edge of the northern part of the Jordan Valley. It's an agricultural community of about 20,000 residents, with small, carefully tilled plots of land between the dwellings. It's also a militant town, in which almost 40 people have been killed since October 7, 2023.
As Khaled sits down for an interview, one foot taps the floor nervously, unceasingly. Last Saturday, he tells us, he and his brothers, Mustafa, 8, and Mohammed, 5, got up in the morning and played with a cellphone. Their mother, Waad, 35, made breakfast for Othman, 7, a special-needs child who was born blind – the only one in the family who didn't fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Around midday their father Ali, 37, also woke up; he'd returned the previous day from three consecutive months of work in the city of Bnei Brak, adjacent to Tel Aviv. He was welcomed home with great joy, and had planned to spend time with his wife and children until after the Eid al-Fitr festival at the end of Ramadan, that starts this weekend, before returning to his job in Israel.
After getting up, Ali drove to the neighboring village of Atuf, to work on a small patch of peas that he was growing there. He got home at 5 P.M., and the whole family gathered around to play with Lego. Waad prepared supper for everyone, to break the daily fast, a stew of rice and meat. Father and sons went to the mosque, whose minaret looms over the yard we're sitting in, for the evening prayers. From there they went to visit a friend, and then they all showered, ate and decided to go on a fun outing to Nablus, about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from Tammun.
The Bani Odeh boys. In the center are Othman, with his eyes closed, and Mohammed, both of whom were shot dead.
They arrived in the big city, which is full of life on Ramadan nights, at about 11:30. Ahead of Eid al-Fitr, the Bani Odehs decided to visit the new shopping mecca, City Mall, to buy holiday clothes for the children. Khaled, who asked for an Adidas tracksuit, says everyone was happy and in good spirits. The younger ones were particularly excited by going up and down the shiny escalators in the new emporium. After wandering around for about half an hour, not without enjoying ice cream, they decided to put off buying the clothes until the next day: By then it was late, after midnight.
On the way home they drove around the city and indulged in chocolate-filled crepes at a kiosk. It was after 1 A.M. when they left Nablus. Khaled was afraid his father would fall asleep at the wheel, but Ali assured him he wasn't tired.
At about 1:30 they arrived at the intersection at the entrance to their town. Khaled says his father drove slowly. Everyone in the car was awake. Mohammed pointed out his school to his father as they passed it. Those were almost the last words spoken in the car. The streets were desolate. They had no idea that an undercover Border Police force had entered the town in disguise, in a vehicle with Palestinian license plates.
The father, Ali Bani Odeh.
"We didn't see a single soldier or Border Police officer," Khaled says in reply to a repeated question.
Suddenly the gates of hell opened. He recalls that the car came under fire from two directions – from officers who suddenly appeared in front of them on the street, about 10 meters away, and also from behind, up on a rooftop. He even saw the red laser beam that preceded the rifle shots. No one called on them to stop, he stresses; there was no warning shot in the air before the deadly barrage was unleashed.
Khaled only cried once since his family was shot dead. "And if we cry, will it bring them back?" he asks rhetorically, with almost uncanny maturity.
Khaled says he immediately bent over and covered his head with his arms. His mother and brother in the front seat were the first to be killed, he adds. Afterward he heard his father murmuring the Quranic verses every Muslim must recite before his death, and which every child knows by heart. Assuming that everyone in the car was dead, Khaled stepped outside in a daze.
"Suddenly, I don't know from where, there were a lot of soldiers around me," he says. He doesn't distinguish between IDF troops and Border Police officers, and why should he at his age, or given the reality around him. One of them, he relates, grabbed him by the hair and knocked him to the ground. "We killed the dogs," Khaled recalls hearing him say to his comrades.
Khaled with soldiers from the Palestinian national force, who came to pay condolences this week. Credit: Alex Levac
A delegation of female soldiers from the Palestinian national force arrives to pay condolences, wearing impressive uniforms with gold braiding and displaying a meticulous military aura. Their commander hugs Khaled, who has stood up, but very quickly he resumes his story of that night's events.
The officers pushed him against the wall, shouting "Uskut! Uskut!" – "Shut up." And then the unbelievable happened: Mustafa emerged from the car. Khaled had been certain he was dead. Mustafa had been lightly wounded by shrapnel that struck his face, below his right eye. Khaled wanted to run to his brother, but an officer butted him with his rifle. Khaled was then taken to a jeep, where he was hit again. The officers demanded to know who was with him in the car, even as the four bodies of his loved ones lay there, splayed out. He told them his parents and brothers were in the vehicle. His interrogator asked what his name was – Khaled, he replied – and again shouted at him that he was lying.
The insistent officers told him he was Yaman Bani Odeh, a 15-year-old whose brother Rian, a wanted person, had been killed.
"Admit that you're Yaman," one threatened him. Khaled says he denied it and replied with these words: "Would you love the person who kills your father, your mother and your brothers? Why do you call me habibi [an affectionate term]? You're hitting me and killing my family – and calling me 'habibi'? You killed my family before my eyes and you hit me with a rifle and I will not shut up."
According to a joint Israel Police-Israel Defense Forces account of the incident provided this week, the Kia had begun to acc
elerate in the direction of the forces, they felt they were in danger and opened fire.
A relative, Magdi Bani Odeh, said this week in response: "A father driving with a mother and four children – why would he speed up?"
Khaled and Mustafa's grandmother, Najah, who will henceforth be a substitute for their mother. Credit: Alex Levac
This past Tuesday, Josh Breiner reported in Haaretz that the Justice Ministry unit in charge of investigating police misconduct had opened an investigation into the incident, but had yet to summon for questioning the undercover officers involved in killing the family. In previous incidents, Breiner noted, personnel from the Border Police suspected of wrongdoing were questioned immediately, under caution, in order to prevent coordination of testimony and tampering of evidence.
Following his questioning in the jeep, Border Police personnel accompanied Khaled to a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance that had arrived in the meantime from the nearby city of Tubas. He tells us the troops instructed him not to tell the paramedic that they had beaten him.
Mustafa joins us while we're talking, but doesn't say a word. His face is pale, his eyes dried out from all the tears. The shrapnel wound is the only outer sign of the horror he endured.
Khaled and Mustafa were evacuated to the Turkish Hospital in Tubas, where the bodies of their family were also laid out. Khaled says that the only time he cried since all this happened was when he saw them there. Mustafa also cried.
"And if we cry, will it bring them back?" he asks rhetorically, with almost uncanny maturity.
The funeral was held the next morning. Their beloved parents and brothers were interred side by side in the cemetery of the extended Bani Odeh family, in the town of Tammun.
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