Israeli settlers hold gun to 3-year-old Palestinian girl’s head in West Bank

Violent Israeli settlers held a gun to a three-year-old Palestinian girl’s head, pelted the family with stones and burned their car after the family made a wrong turn into a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

According to Israeli media, the Al-Jaar family were travelling to the occupied West Bank city of Nablus when they made a wrong turn into the Giva’at Ronen settlement.

Nofa, the mother, told the Israeli news site Ynet that the navigation system they were using in the car misled them, taking them off the main road into a side route that went into the Israeli settlement.

"They [settlers] started running after us. We turned [the car] around because we wanted to escape from the scene, but there was no way out. You can’t go back, you can’t move forward…" she said.

"Many people ran in our direction, two had guns. After they broke all the windows, one raised a gun and our little girl started screaming. They asked, ‘are you from the territories? Did you come from Gaza? Do you have anyone from Gaza? ‘We want to kill you’ they told us," she added.

The report states the settlers then sprayed the family with tear gas, chasing them away and pelted their car with stones.

"We called the police, but there was no sense of urgency," the family told Ynet.

"…What did we do? We saw death before our eyes. They wanted to kill us. After that, they burned our car before the police arrived. They put a gun to my three year-old girls’ head," Nofa continued.

The Israeli N12 News reported the family members had suffered from burns and bruises after being attacked by settlers and had to be transferred to the Rabin Medical Centre-Beilinson Campus for treatment.

Israeli security forces told the Israeli Maariv News that the attack was a "serious escalation in the activity of right-wing activists," and an investigation was launched by the Shin Bet Israeli security agency.

Israeli media also reported that police had opened an investigation into the attack.

Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza on 7 October, there has been an uptick in violence, raids and arrests against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

According to Amnesty International, since October, Israel has carried out "unlawful killings, including by using lethal force without necessity or disproportionately during protests and arrest raids, denying medical assistance to those injured."

Israelis have killed over 500 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 7 October and arrested at least 10,000 others.

Peace Now, a non profit organisation said that Israel has seized 23.7sq km of Palestinian land while the ongoing war on Gaza rages on, making this year the highest in Israeli land seizures over the past three decades.

Last month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal.

The UN’s top court found that Israeli policies and practices amounted to "annexation of large parts of the occupied Palestinian territory".