TAMMUN: Distraught Palestinians mourned over the bodies of four members of a family, including two children, who the Palestinian health ministry said were shot dead on Sunday by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military and police said troops had opened fire on a vehicle over a perceived safety threat, killing four people inside.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams had recovered the bodies of two adults and two children from a vehicle that had been fired on by Israeli forces in the West Bank's northern town of Tammun.
"Four martyrs from one family arrived at the Turkish Public Hospital in Tubas after the occupation army shot at them in Tammun," the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said.
It said the hospital received the bodies of a 37-year-old man, his 35-year-old wife and two boys aged five and seven, adding that all had gunshot wounds.
In Tammun on Sunday, 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 said 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, aged eight and 11, were wounded by shrapnel after Israeli forces opened fire on their vehicle early on Sunday morning.
Spiralling violence
Palestinian officials said that Israeli settlers shot dead a Palestinian man on Saturday in an attack on the village of Qusra, while two other local residents were injured.
The military on Sunday confirmed that "as a result of gunfire by one of the Israeli suspects, a Palestinian civilian was killed, and additional Palestinian civilians were injured and evacuated to receive further medical treatment".
According to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 1,045 Palestinians -- many of them militants, but also scores of civilians -- in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war.
Official Israeli figures say that 45 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations.
In addition to roughly three million Palestinians, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements and outposts in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.