One child was shot while sitting on her mother’s lap. Another was hit by an airstrike as he stepped inside his home. Two others were killed while playing outside with friends.

Alleged Israeli gunfire has killed at least 18 children under the age of 15 in the West Bank this year, according to the United Nations. That follows 29 children killed in 2023 and 23 in 2024, amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza raging since Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023.

Some were killed during Israeli military raids in dense neighborhoods, others supposedly by sniper fire in peaceful areas. The killings have risen as the IDF has stepped up operations in the West Bank since the war’s onset in what it calls a crackdown on terrorists.

The Associated Press spoke with several families whose children were killed this year. Some families doubt there will ever be any accountability, accusing Israel of rarely punishing its soldiers for deadly violence.

The military told the AP that its rules of engagement “strictly prohibit intentional fire” at civilians, calling claims it targets minors “false” and “baseless.” It said it had launched investigations into some cases.

It gave no word that any soldiers had been disciplined, and the families say they’ve received little information about how and why their children were killed.

Here are some of their stories, as they’ve told them to the AP.

Tayma Asous, a water engineer and single mother living in a quiet Jenin neighborhood, recalls daughter Layla Al-Khatib as precocious and intelligent — always wanting to play pretend.

On January 25, while Layla sat on Asous’s lap before a family meal, an Israeli sniper allegedly fired through the second-floor window of the family home. The bullet hit Layla in the skull.

Blood trickled down Layla’s head and onto Asous’s hijab.

Layla’s grandfather grabbed her limp body and ran downstairs, calling for help, as Asous followed in a daze. Four military jeeps were parked outside.

Asous approached the soldiers. She remembers one looked at her and said, “I am sorry.”

Asous says Layla was still breathing when the ambulance arrived, but died on the way to the hospital.

The military........

© The Times of Israel