Tammun, West Bank - Distraught Palestinians mourned over the bodies of four members of a family, including two children, who were murdered on Sunday by Israeli forces in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Israeli police officers opened fire on a 37-year-old father, his 35-year-old wife, and their two boys aged five and seven as they were returning home in the town of Tammun from a shopping trip.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said all four had been shot in the head.
AFP photos showed dozens of family members gathering to mourn the dead.
Women wept over their loved ones wrapped in Palestinian flags and kuffiyeh scarves, as one man lifted a child's body above the crowd.
The Israeli military and police claimed in a joint statement that during an operation in Tammun, "a vehicle accelerated toward the forces, who perceived an immediate threat to their safety and responded with gunfire."
"As a result, four Palestinians who were in the vehicle were killed," it said, adding that the incident was under review.
In a statement posted on X, the Palestinian foreign ministry strongly condemned the killings, which it said were "not isolated" incidents, but "part of a comprehensive and systematic aggression" towards the Palestinians by Israel.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the couple's two other children were wounded by shrapnel after Israeli forces opened fire on their vehicle. One of the surviving boys told Reuters that he was taunted with shouts of "We killed dogs" by Israeli soldiers.
Israeli violence in the West Bank, has been illegally occupied since 1967, has been skyrocketing, with settlers backed by Israeli soldiers regularly murdering Palestinians and driving them from their homes.
According to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures, at least 1,045 Palestinian have been killed since the start of Israel's assault on Gaza in October 2023.
UN experts, human rights organizations, and scholars have determined that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.