Israeli human rights group B'Tselem published an investigation into the circumstances of the death of the child two-and-a-half-year-old Muhammad al-Tamimi in June in the town of Nabi Saleh, which confirmed that an Israeli soldier shot dead the child with live ammunition.

B'Tselem's overall investigation:

On Thursday, 1 June 2023, at around 4:00 P.M., the Israeli military set up a checkpoint at the southern entrance to the Palestinian village of a-Nabi Saleh, next to a military watchtower in the area. Haitham Tamimi, a local resident, returned home from work in Ramallah at around 6:30 P.M. He and his wife Marwah were planning to visit family outside the village that evening, but when they saw the traffic jam the checkpoint had caused at the village’s exit, they changed their minds and planned instead to visit a relative who had recently moved into a new home, about a hundred meters away from theirs.   

Haitham played outside with his two-and-a-half-year-old son Muhammad, while Marwah was getting ready inside the house. At 8:20 P.M., Haitham noticed two military jeeps entering the village. Fearing clashes would erupt, he put Muhammad in the back seat of the car and got in the driver’s seat. At that exact moment, several live rounds were fired from the direction of the watchtower. One hit the windshield and lodged in the dashboard. Haitham quickly started the car and, trying to get out of harm’s way, backed up and turned the car around. As soon as the right side of the car turned towards the watchtower, four more bullets were fired at them. One hit Muhammad in the head, and another hit Haitham’s shoulder. The other two bullets hit the body of the car.   

Haitham drove to his relatives’ home, and the relatives drove his car to the checkpoint. From there, Muhammad was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital inside Israel. He died of his wounds at the hospital several days later, on 5 June 2023. Haitham was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Ramallah, where he was hospitalized for four days. Muhammad’s mother did not receive a permit to enter Israel until the day after Muhammad was shot, and his father received one after he was discharged from the hospital, one day before Muhammad died.   

Shortly after the shooting, soldiers and Border Police officers entered the village, and some of them climbed onto the roofs of local houses. Young men threw stones at them, and the security forces fired live rounds, sponge bullets, rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas canisters at them and threw stun grenades. Three Palestinians were injured by sponge and “rubber” bullets, including a photographer and a minor. The minor, who was hit in the head, was admitted to a hospital in Ramallah, and two days after being discharged, he was arrested along with another young man.    

On 14 June 2023, the military released a summary of its inquiry into the incident, according to which a soldier who monitors surveillance cameras reported two Palestinians were firing at the settlement of Neve Tzuf (Halamish) and a nearby military post. An officer identified a suspicious vehicle and fired in the air. A soldier at a different guard post “identified two figures entering a vehicle.” Believing they were the Palestinians who had fired and that they were firing at him as well, and with clearance from his commander, he fired several shots at them. The inquiry uncovered that the soldier who fired had mistaken the officer’s shots for Palestinian gunfire. The officials behind the inquiry found “gaps in command and in the commanders’ control of the incident, as well as in the reports and communication between the forces on the ground, resulting in incorrect decision making.” The commander of the Kfir Brigade, Col. Sharon Altit, decided to issue a command reprimand to the officer who fired in the air against regulations.   

The inquiry’s conclusions, and the fact that the military chose to release them without being asked to do so, demonstrate the military’s brazen disregard for Palestinians’ lives. The sequence of events emerging from the inquiry reveals there was no factual basis to support the decision to fire and that it was made entirely on a single soldier’s unfounded suspicions and subjective feelings. This is not just the result of “incorrect decision-making” but an accurate reflection of Israel’s open-fire policy in the West Bank, which allows soldiers to wantonly fire inside a civilian community, with utter indifference to the consequences. It should come as no surprise, then, that the incident was whitewashed and that no one involved, from the soldier who killed Muhammad Tamimi to senior officers who sign off on policy, has been punished, save for a symbolic reprimand issued to the officer who fired in the air “against regulations.”   

GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs was quick to clear the military of any responsibility for the incident, saying, “IDF forces operate within a civilian environment from which terrorists carry out attacks and acts of terrorism... We do everything in our power not to harm persons who are uninvolved.” The military made similar claims after strikes in the Gaza Strip killed civilians who had not participated in the fighting. As this claim would have it, when civilians are hurt, the blame lies with the Palestinians. When they are not, it is the result of the caution Israel employs. This position has no legal basis, to say nothing of a moral basis, and it is intended solely to give the military free reign and relieve it of the obligation to obey the law.

Haitham Tamimi (44), Muhammad’s father, told B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Haddad what happened that day:

On Thursday, 1 June 2023, at around 6:30 P.M., I came home from work with my brother Aktham (46) and his son Yusef (7). Our family told us the army had set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the village. When we got there, we saw dozens of cars lined up to exit the village. There were only seven cars in line to enter. We stood there for about 15 minutes, and then the soldiers let us through; they didn’t hold us up. I dropped off my brother and his son at their house and stayed with them for a little bit. My son Ousamah (8) was there, and he wanted to stay and play with his cousin.   

Then we went home. We were going to go to a relative’s birthday in Deir Nizam, but when I sat with my wife Marwah in the yard outside our house, we saw the traffic jam at the checkpoint and decided not to go. Instead, we said we’d go visit our relative, Faraj Munir (41), who’d moved to a new house about a hundred meters away from us. Marwah got Muhammad dressed, and I went outside to play with him while she got ready. Muhammad was playing near our car.   

It was about 8:20 P.M. I saw two army patrols coming in from the direction of the checkpoint. I thought they had come to direct traffic, because the traffic jam was affecting the settlers’ road too. Usually, when the army enters the village, clashes start up with the young guys, and sometimes there’s also stone-throwing and confrontations in which the military fires dozens of bullets and grenades. Sometimes they hit our house. To protect Muhammad from all this, I decided to put him in the car. I opened the back door on the right side of the car. That was at 8:30 P.M. When you open the car door, the light inside it turns on, and the headlights turn on and off.  

I put Muhammad in the back seat on the right, and then, as soon as I got behind the wheel, live rounds were fired from the direction of the tower. One of the bullets hit the bottom-middle part of the windshield and lodged in the dashboard. I started the car right away and backed up a few meters. I started turning the car around, and then, as its right side faced the tower, I heard another burst of three bullets or more. One hit my right shoulder from behind and exited from the front. Another one hit Muhammad in the head above the right ear. He didn’t make a sound and just fell on the seat.   

When the shooting started, my wife came out of the house. When the second volley was fired, she shouted and asked what happened. I answered, shouting that they’d hit the child. I kept driving for about a hundred meters, to my relatives’ house. I couldn’t go on. I felt scatterbrained and scared. I called out to my relatives for help. I got out of the car and kept shouting. I couldn’t stand on my feet anymore. Faraj came up to us and checked on Muhammad. Until that moment, I didn’t even know that I’d been hit too. Faraj made me go back into the car to take Muhammad to the hospital. He got in the driver’s seat. Two young men, who are both relatives and neighbors, came with us, and Faraj asked them not to move Muhammad so as not to make his condition worse. He drove while honking the horn and flashing the lights, so he got past the traffic jam. At 8:40 P.M., we got to the soldiers manning the checkpoint. They stopped us, and Faraj got out of the car and shouted to them in English that we had a person who was critically wounded.   

After a few minutes, three soldiers approached us with weapons drawn. The young men lifted Muhammad to show the soldiers his injury. They let us through right after. Faraj asked the soldiers to call an ambulance because of the severe injury. At first, they refused and told us to continue to Ramallah, but then the officer told Faraj to pull over in front of the Halamish settlement and wait there. After some time, an Israeli paramedic arrived, checked Muhammad and called an ambulance right away. He checked me too, and gave me first aid, and then I was taken in an ambulance to al-Istishari Hospital at around 9:00 P.M. Later, I was told that at around 10:00 P.M., a helicopter took Muhammad to Tel HaShomer Hospital in Israel in critical condition.    

I was very worried about Muhammad. Relatives and visitors tried to reassure me, but I’d seen his injury and knew his condition was serious. Four days after the incident, I was discharged from the hospital, and that day, I got a permit to travel to see Muhammad. When I saw him, he was in rough shape, heartbreaking. He was hooked up to machines, not moving and not breathing on his own. We sat down with the doctors, and they told us that Muhammad was in a state of clinical death and that they would probably have to take him off life support. I almost broke down. I couldn’t take it. My wife saw my condition and suggested I go home, which is what I did. I said goodbye to Muhammad, even though I didn’t know for sure that this would be the last time I would see him.    

In the late afternoon of Monday, the fifth day after Muhammad was injured, the doctors at the Israeli hospital told us there was no hope and that they would be taking Muhammad off life support. They sent the body to us the same day, and we buried him in the cemetery in the village. The occupation army did not let us be. They violently dispersed the protest that happened after the funeral, and people got hurt and needed hospital care. 

Marwa Tamimi, 32, Muhammad's mother, told B'Tselem field researcher Iyad Haddad what happened that day:

I didn’t get to the hospital until the next day, after I got a permit. My uncle, Bashir Tamimi, was already there, because he was the only one the soldiers allowed in the helicopter with Muhammad since he has an Israeli entry permit. He tried to reassure me, but I knew Muhammad was in bad shape. I met the doctors and told one of them in English that I was Muhammad’s mother and that I was strong and wanted to know how he was doing. He told me, “normal.” I didn’t believe him and insisted that he explain it to me exactly, and then he told me: “dangerous.” He repeated this word four times and then said that Muhammad could die. I can’t describe the state I was in. But I’m a woman of faith. I prayed to God to heal my son.  

On the third day at the hospital, one of the doctors told me they couldn’t operate on Muhammad to remove the bullet because it had ruptured the brain and arteries. On the fourth day, my husband managed to enter Israel. He arrived a broken man. When he saw Muhammad in a state of near death, he collapsed and cried. We asked for a meeting with the doctors, so they could explain his condition to us. Two doctors and an interpreter sat with us. The interpreter told me before the meeting that she had heard people at the hospital saying Muhammad had been injured in a family fight. I explained to her exactly what happened, and she realized my son had been injured by military fire.   

The doctors told us that if they took Muhammad off the machines, he would die. We understood it was hopeless and that he was brain dead. My husband started shaking. He himself had been discharged from the hospital shortly before and was still suffering from his own injury. I was afraid he would collapse, and that we’d lose him too, so I told him to go home. He went home in the evening. My father and another relative stayed with me.    

The next day, the doctors examined Muhammad, talked to each other and then told us there was no hope and that we should say goodbye to him and take him off life support. They said that after they pulled the plug, his heart would keep beating for ten minutes to an hour. I went into Muhammad’s room and held him. It was a very difficult moment, indescribable, losing your son, the thing you hold dearest in the world, saying goodbye to him. I kept holding him until the doctors came in to unplug the machines. I couldn’t stand it and left the room.    

I dreamed of seeing Muhammad and his brother grow up together; I dreamed of seeing them study at school and university; I dreamed of seeing them succeed in life; I dreamed of being at his wedding. All we have left are the memories and his toys. Every time I see his things, I cry. I can’t face what happened.