Violent Israeli settlers pointed a gun at the head of a three-year-old Palestinian girl, pelted the family with stones and burned their car after the family took a wrong turn into a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

According to Israeli media reports, the Al-Jaar family was on their way to the occupied West Bank city of Nablus when they took a wrong turn into the settlement of Giva’at Ronen.

Nofa, the mother, told the Israeli news site Ynet that they had been misled by the navigation system in the car and had left the main road onto a side road that led to the Israeli settlement.

“They (the settlers) started chasing us. We turned around (in the car) because we wanted to flee the scene, but there was no way out. You couldn’t go back, you couldn’t go forward…” she said.

“Many people ran towards us, two had guns. After breaking all the windows, one raised a gun and our little girl started screaming. They asked: ‘Are you from the territories? Are you from Gaza? Do you have anyone from Gaza?’ ‘We want to kill you,’ they told us,” she added.

The report says the settlers then sprayed the family with tear gas, chased them away and threw stones at their car.

“We called the police, but there was no sense of urgency,” the family said ^ “Ynet”.

“…What did we do? We saw death before our eyes. They wanted to kill us. Then they burned our car before the police came. They put a gun to the head of my three-year-old daughters,” Nofa continued.

The Israeli N12 News reported that family members suffered burns and bruises after attacks by settlers and had to be taken to the Rabin Medical Centre-Beilinson Campus for treatment.

Israeli security forces informed the Israeli Maariv News The Israeli secret service Shin Bet subsequently launched an investigation, according to which the attack represented a “serious escalation in the activities of right-wing extremist activists”.

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

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

According to Amnesty International, since October Israel has committed “unlawful killings, including through the unnecessary or disproportionate use of lethal force during protests and raids, and by denying medical assistance to the injured.”

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

According to Peace Now, a non-profit organization, Israel has seized 23.7 square kilometers of Palestinian land during the ongoing war in Gaza, making this year the largest year for Israeli land seizures in the past three decades.

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

The UN’s highest court concluded that Israel’s policies and practices amounted to an “annexation of large parts of the occupied Palestinian territory”.