After Gaza ceasefire, Israel turns its firepower on the West Bank
Bassam Assous holds the body of his granddaughter, Laila Al-Khatib, after she was killed in her home by Israeli forces, 26 January 2025
Basel Adra reports in +972 on 28 January 2025:
Bassam Assous was eating dinner at home with his family when the gunfire started. It was around 8 p.m. on Saturday, January 25, and unbeknownst to them, Israeli soldiers had entered their village of Muthalath Al-Shuhada, located near Jenin in the occupied West Bank. “The windows and shutters were closed — we had no idea what was going on outside until we heard shooting very close by,” Assous told +972 Magazine.
Assous and his wife, Ghada, quickly moved away from the windows, while their two daughters, Shaimaa and Teema, hid in a bedroom with Teema’s 2-year-old daughter, Laila.
Suddenly, Assous heard his daughters screaming. “I rushed to the bedroom with my wife; Shaimaa was holding Laila tightly, while Teema was screaming next to them,” he recounted. “I took hold of Laila, and my hands quickly became covered in blood. It was coming from her head — she had been hit with a bullet.”
Carrying his granddaughter, bleeding and unconscious, Assous ran outside to the street only to find that it was full of Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles. “My wife screamed, ‘Why did you kill the girl? What did she do to you?’” he continued. “One of the soldiers, standing some distance away, responded, ‘Sorry.’ “I shouted back, ‘Why did you shoot her?’” Assous went on