Latest news with #SayfollahMusallet
Middle East Eye
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Israeli settlers seize land from same Palestinian village they killed American Sayfollah Musallet
Israeli settlers have commandeered land belonging to Palestinians from the village of Sinjil by putting mobile homes on it, Wafa news agency reported on Thursday. The village is where American citizen Sayfollah Musallet was beaten to death by Israeli settlers less than a week ago after he tried to defend his family's land from settler attacks. Despite international condemnation after they killed Musallet, the settlers have continued to stake their claim in a strip of land north of the village without pushback from police or the government, to expand the illegal settlement Givat Haroeh. The website of One Israel Fund describes the expansion plans of the Givat Haroeh, which anticipates 100 families living in the settlement this year. The illegal settlement was founded in 2003 and the website says, "settlers of this community are steadfast in their commitment to the land of Israel". Musallet, a 20-year-old from Tampa was killed by settlers - who along with the Israeli military- prevented an ambulance coming to his rescue for three hours. His friend was also assaulted and shot by the same group. CNN's Jeremy Diamond said that he and his team's vehicle was attacked by settlers while they were reporting on the story.
Al Jazeera
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
How US dealt with the cases of nine Americans killed by Israel since 2022
Washington, DC – The family of Sayfollah Musallet, the United States citizen who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank last week, is calling for justice. Musallet's relatives want Washington to launch its own investigation into the incident to ensure accountability. The Florida-born 20-year-old is the ninth US citizen to be killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers since 2022. None of the previous cases have led to criminal charges or US sanctions against the perpetrators. That lack of response is what advocates call a 'pattern of impunity', wherein Washington demands a probe without placing any significant pressure on Israel to produce results. In Musallet's case, the administration of President Donald Trump urged Israel to 'aggressively' investigate the killing. 'There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,' Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, said in a statement on Tuesday. It is not clear if the US has taken any further actions to seek justice in the aftermath of the fatal beating. Critics say the 'pattern of impunity' stems in part from the historically close bonds between the US and Israel. Successive presidential administrations in the US have affirmed their 'unwavering' support for Israel, and the US provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually. Here, Al Jazeera looks at who the eight other victims were, how the US has responded to their killing and where their cases stand. Omar Assad Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American, was driving home in the occupied West Bank after visiting friends on January 12, 2022, when Israeli soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint. According to the autopsy report and his family's account, the troops dragged Assad out of his car and then handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded him, leaving him to die at a cold construction site. The administration of then-President Joe Biden called on Israel to launch a criminal investigation into the incident. But Assad's relatives and lawmakers from his home state of Milwaukee wanted Washington to conduct its own probe – a demand that never materialised. As is often the case, Israel's investigation into its own soldiers' conduct did not lead to any criminal charges. In 2023, the Israeli army said that it found no 'causal link' between the way its soldiers treated Assad and his death. The Biden administration also declined to apply sanctions under US law to the Israeli unit that killed Assad: the Netzah Yehuda, a battalion notorious for its abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank. Last year, the US Department of State announced that the battalion will still be eligible for US aid under the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance for security units involved in human rights violations. Shireen Abu Akleh Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera reporter, was fatally shot by Israeli forces during a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on May 11, 2022. Owing to her status as one of the most celebrated journalists in the Middle East, her killing sparked international outrage from rights groups and press freedom advocates. Despite the global attention, Israeli forces attacked her funeral in Jerusalem, beating the pallbearers carrying her coffin with batons. Israel initially denied killing Abu Akleh, 51, falsely claiming that the reporter was shot by armed Palestinians. Months later, after multiple visual investigations showed that Israeli soldiers targeted Abu Akleh, Israel acknowledged that its forces likely killed the reporter, dismissing the incident as an accident. The Biden administration faced waves of pleas by legislators and rights groups to launch its own investigation into the killing, but it resisted the calls, arguing that Israel is capable of investigating itself. In November 2022, Israeli media reports claimed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating the shooting of Abu Akleh, but the US Department of Justice never confirmed the probe. More than three years after Abu Akleh's killing, her family and supporters say justice in her case has not been served. Tawfiq Ajaq Born in Louisiana, Ajaq was 17 when he visited the occupied West Bank to see his relatives last year. On January 19, 2024, he was driving a pick-up truck with his friends when Israelis sprayed the vehicle with bullets and killed him. Mohammed Salameh, who witnessed and survived the attack, said the shooting was unprovoked. While it is not clear which individual shot Ajaq, Israel said the incident involved 'an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian' and was sparked by 'rock-throwing activities' – a claim that Salameh has denied. The US State Department called for an 'urgent investigation to determine the circumstance' of the incident. But more than 19 months after the shooting, Israel has not publicly released any findings or charged any suspect in the shooting. 'We feel abandoned by our government,' Ajaq's uncle, Mohammad Abdeljabbar, told Al Jazeera last year. Mohammad Khdour Khdour was also 17 when he was killed under almost identical circumstances to Ajaq just weeks later. According to his cousin Malek Mansour, who witnessed the attack, an unidentified assailant opened fire at their car in the occupied West Bank from a vehicle with an Israeli number plate. Mansour said the attack was unprovoked. Khdour died on February 10, 2024. The two had been eating cookies and taking selfies moments before the shooting. Once again, Washington called for a probe. 'There needs to be an investigation. We need to get the facts. And if appropriate, there needs to be accountability,' then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at that time. But advocates say that, while normally Israel launches sham investigations into such incidents, Israeli authorities have not acknowledged Khdour's killing at all. The Israeli military and police told the publication Haaretz last year that they are not familiar with the case. Jacob Flickinger An Israeli air strike targeted a World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicle in Gaza on April 1, 2024, killing seven aid workers, sparking anger and condemnation across the world. Among the victims was Flickinger, a 33-year-old US-Canadian dual citizen. Biden called for a 'swift' Israeli investigation into the attack, which he said 'must bring accountability'. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the blast a 'tragic accident'. The Israeli military said the commander who ordered the strike had 'mistakenly assumed' that gunmen in the area were in the aid vehicle. It added that the commander did not identify the car as associated with World Central Kitchen, a well-known hunger relief initiative founded by celebrity chef Jose Andres. A World Central Kitchen logo was displayed prominently on the top of the vehicle before the attack. Israel said it dismissed two commanders over the incident, but there were no criminal charges. Since then, Israel has killed hundreds of aid workers in Gaza, including Palestinian staff members from World Central Kitchen. Last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza as well as other alleged war crimes. Aysenur Ezgi Eygi Eygi, born in Washington state, was participating in a protest against an illegal settler outpost in the West Bank on September 6, 2024, when an Israeli soldier shot her in the head. She was 26. While there were reports of a scuffle during a crackdown on the demonstration by Israeli forces, several witnesses have said that Eygi was shot during a calm period after the chaos had ended. The State Department called on Israel to 'quickly and robustly' investigate Eygi's killing, but it ruled out conducting its own probe. Biden dismissed her death as an 'accident', but Blinken condemned it as 'unprovoked and unjustified'. On the same day that Eygi was fatally shot by Israel, the US Justice Department filed charges against Hamas leaders after the killing of US-Israeli captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Gaza. The Israeli military said its soldiers likely killed Eygi 'indirectly and unintentionally' – a conclusion that her family called offensive, stressing that she was targeted by a sniper. 'The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling,' the family said in a statement. Trump ally Randy Fine, now a Congress member, celebrated the killing of Eygi. 'One less #MuslimTerrorist,' he wrote in a social media post, referring to the shooting. Kamel Jawad When Jawad, a celebrated leader in the Lebanese American community in Michigan, was killed by an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon on October 1 of last year, the Biden administration initially denied he was a US citizen. Washington later acknowledged that Jawad was American, expressing 'alarm' over his killing. 'As we have noted repeatedly, it is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy,' the US State Department said at that time. Israel has not commented publicly on the strike that killed Jawad. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) slammed the Biden administration's handling of the case, including the US government's initial 'smug' response. 'It's as if they're intentionally trying to see our people killed, intentionally downplaying us and dehumanising us,' ADC executive director Abed Ayoub told Al Jazeera last year. Amer Rabee On April 6, Israeli forces in the West Bank fatally shot 14-year-old Rabee, a New Jersey native, and called him a 'terrorist'. Two of his friends were also injured in the attack. While the Israeli military accused Rabee and his friends of throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles, the slain teenager's family insisted that he was picking almonds on the side of the road. The Trump administration failed to pursue accountability in the case or even publicly press for further details about the incident. Instead, the State Department cited the Israeli account about the 14-year-old's killing. 'We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,' the State Department said at that time. 'We acknowledge the [Israeli military's] initial statement that expressed that this incident occurred during a counter-terrorism operation.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Relatives mourn Palestinian American beaten to death by Israeli settlers: ‘He made everyone feel loved'
When Fatmah Muhammad thinks about her younger cousin Sayfollah Musallet, affectionately known as Saif, she pictures him behind the counter of his ice-cream shop in Tampa Bay, Florida, carefully decorating her knafeh with the same effort he brought to everything else. She makes the dessert from scratch, and would sometimes ship it from California, where the 43-year-old baker lives, so the family legacy could grow nationwide. Saif would sell the Palestinian dessert in his little Amish-style ice-cream shop that carried international treats from the world over. The inventive 20-year-old would record videos for her, making sure each portion of knafeh was flawless, each layer was positioned exactly right. 'Make sure you get it perfect,' she would tease him from 2,000 miles away. He would go above and beyond, she says. Now, less than a year after opening that shop with dreams of expansion, Saif is dead – beaten to death by Israeli settlers on his family's farm in the occupied West Bank while he was visiting relatives. His death has left a family shattered and a community demanding answers. Zayed Kadur, a close family friend whom Saif called 'uncle', wrestled with all the ways that made his nephew by love special. 'He was just a very rare soul,' he says. 'He made everyone feel important. He made everyone feel loved.' Saif's eldest uncle, Hesam Musallet, said the impact his nephew had on the people closest to him was palpable. 'He would walk into a room and the room would light up,' he says. 'If people were sitting down, he would shake hands with everybody when he walked in, acknowledge them. Old, young – to him, it was all the same.' Customers at the ice-cream shop told Fatmah how if someone came in short on cash, Saif would quietly cover their tab without making them feel embarrassed. 'He really made everyone feel like family,' Fatmah remembers. 'No matter the race, no matter the background, no matter the age. That's just who he was.' Born in Port Charlotte, Florida, Saif was the oldest of four children. His parents had moved the family to Palestine for his elementary and high school years before he returned to the US to live and work. A few years later, the ice-cream shop came to fruition, almost by accident. Saif and his cousins noticed that an ice-cream store near their uncle's coffee shop by the University of South Florida was struggling. When the owner mentioned he might move on from it, Saif called his family immediately. 'That business, when he got it, was a failing business,' Hesam says. 'But he went in there, he turned it around. He had a passion for it … People would just come back for his customer service. He was phenomenal.' For Saif, this summer trip back home to the West Bank village of Baten al-Hawa near Jerusalem was routine – a chance to reconnect with extended family before returning to his shop and the life he was building in Florida ahead of his 21st birthday. His father had swapped places with him, taking his shifts at the ice-cream shop so Saif could hang out with the family. The family Saif was visiting represents generations of connections between Palestine and America. His uncle Hesam, who was born in the United States, explained how his father – Saif's grandfather – had come to the US in the early 1960s. His grandfather first arrived in New York in the early 1900s, spending a few years stateside before returning to the West Bank. 'There's so many people in our town that are American citizens,' Hesam says of their village. 'Most of their children and grandchildren all born here. So they go back and forth, summer vacations there. Everybody goes for summer vacations, weddings. It's just typical.' But on the day he was killed, Saif was at his family's farm in Baten al-Hawa, in Area B of the West Bank – officially under Palestinian administrative control but also under Israeli security control. According to witnesses, settlers had come to the land, chopping down olive trees and burning crops. 'It was a Friday. People will go out and sit around with friends,' Hesam says. 'And that's our land. If there's nobody there, the Israeli settlers, they would just like to come and just put up a tent so they can say it's basically stealing that part of that land.' The confrontation escalated, and Saif was beaten with clubs and bats. His friend Mohammed Nael Hijaz was the first to reach him. 'He was not moving when I got there and he could barely breathe,' Hijaz said. 'There was time to save him.' But ambulances were blocked by Israeli forces for three hours, his family said in a statement. During that time, Saif remained conscious, gasping and vomiting, held in the arms of his younger brother. Another young man, 23-year-old Razek Hussein al-Shalabi, was shot and left to bleed to death in the same attack. When ambulances finally reached them, they too were attacked by settlers. Saif was pronounced dead before reaching the hospital. The Israeli military claimed the altercation developed after stones were thrown at Israelis and said it was looking into the incident. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since the Hamas attack on Israel of 7 October 2023, and at least 9,000 have been injured. Israeli settlers seeking to empty the West Bank of Palestinians have grown increasingly emboldened since then, displacing dozens of communities through violent intimidation campaigns. The family's devastation is compounded by what they see as indifference from the US government. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, posted on social media on Tuesday that Israel must 'aggressively investigate the murder' and that 'there must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act'. But the family is well aware that the prospect of arresting violent settlers is rare. In his first days in office, the Trump administration rescinded Biden-era sanctions on Israeli settler groups accused of attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Still, the family is calling on the state department to conduct its own investigation into Saif's killing. Saif's death isn't the family's only nightmare: Saif's 15-year-old cousin, an American citizen named Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim, has been in Israel's Megiddo prison for four and a half months. His family says he has been accused of throwing rocks, which they deny. He is believed to have lost nearly 30 pounds and developed a severe skin infection while imprisoned, with no family visits or phone calls allowed. 'We have a saying in Arabic,' Kadur says. 'Two hits on your head will hurt. And our family cannot take another blow.' The office of the family's Florida congressman, Republican Mike Haridopolos, confirmed to the Guardian that it had been contacted about Ibrahim. 'We have shared the information we received from his family with the state department and have been informed that the US embassy in Israel is following standard procedures,' his office said. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to a query about the charges against Ibrahim, directing questions to the Israel prison service instead. The Guardian has contacted that agency for comment about Ibrahim's current condition. For those who knew Saif, the tragedy lies not just in how he died, but in everything he will never get to do. Nearing his 21st birthday, Saif told his father that he was ready to find a wife and settle down. 'He was not just a number,' Fatmah says. 'He was a friend to everyone, a cousin, a son, a grandson. I just don't want him to be forgotten.'
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Al Jazeera
‘The love he gave': Family vows to keep Sayfollah Musallet's memory alive
Sayfollah Musallet was a brother, a son and an ambitious young man who was just at the beginning of his life. That is the message his family has repeated since July 11, when the 20-year-old United States citizen was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the village of Sinjil in the occupied West Bank. That message, they hope, will prevent the Florida-born Sayfollah from becoming 'just another number' in the growing list of Palestinian Americans whose killings never find justice. That's why his cousin, Fatmah Muhammad, took a moment amid her grief on Wednesday to remember the things she loved about Sayfollah. The two united over a passion for food, and Muhammad, a professional baker, remembers how carefully Sayfollah would serve the delicate knafeh pastry she sold through the ice cream shop he ran in Tampa. 'Just in the way he plated my dessert, he made it look so good,' Muhammad, 43, recalled. 'I even told him he did a better job than me.' 'That really showed the type of person he was,' she added. 'He wanted to do things with excellence.' 'The love he gave all of us' Born and raised in Port Charlotte, a coastal community in south central Florida, Sayfollah – nicknamed Saif – maintained a deep connection to his ancestral roots abroad. He spent a large portion of his teenage years in the occupied West Bank, where his two brothers and sister also lived. There, his parents, who own a home near Sinjil, hoped he could better connect with his culture and language. But after finishing high school, Sayfollah was eager to return to the US to try his hand at entrepreneurship. Last year, he, his father and his cousins opened the dessert shop in Tampa, Florida, playfully named Ice Screamin. But the ice cream shop was just the beginning. Sayfollah's ambition left a deep impression on Muhammad. 'He had his vision to expand the business, to multiply it by many,' she said, her voice at times shaking with grief. 'This at 20, when most kids are playing video games.' 'And the crazy thing is, any goal that he set his mind to, he always did it,' she added. 'He always exceeded everyone's expectations, especially with the love he gave all of us.' Sayfollah's aunt, 58-year-old Samera Musallet, also remembers his dedication to his family. She described Sayfollah as a loving young man who never let his aunts pay for anything in his presence – and who always insisted on bringing dessert when he came for dinner. At the same time, Samera said he was still youthful and fun-loving: He liked to watch comedy movies, shop for clothes and make late-night trips to the WaWa convenience store. One of her fondest memories came when Sayfollah was only 14, and they went together to a baseball game featuring the Kansas City Royals. 'When we got there, he could smell the popcorn and all the hot dogs. He bought everything he could see and said, 'We're going to share!'' she told Al Jazeera. 'After he ate all that junk food, we turned around, and he was sleeping. I woke him up when the game was over, and he goes: 'Who won?'' 'I really want to get married' Another one of his aunts, 52-year-old Katie Salameh, remembers that Sayfollah's mind had turned to marriage in the final months of his young life As the Florida spring gave way to summer, Sayfollah had announced plans to return to the West Bank to see his mother and siblings. But he confided to Salameh that he had another reason for returning. 'The last time I saw him was we had a family wedding, and that was the weekend of Memorial Day [in May],' Salameh told Al Jazeera. 'I asked him: 'Are you so excited to see your siblings and your mom?' He said, 'Oh my god, I'm so excited.' Then he goes, 'I really want to get married. I'm going to look for a bride when I'm there.'' To keep the ice cream shop running smoothly, Sayfollah had arranged a switch with his father: He would return to the West Bank while his father would travel to Tampa to mind the business. But that decision would unwittingly put Sayfollah's father more than 10,000 kilometres away from his son when violent Israeli settlers surrounded him, as witnesses and his family would later recount. Israeli authorities said the attack in Sinjil began with rock-throwing and 'violent clashes … between Palestinians and Israeli civilians', a claim Sayfollah's family and witnesses have rejected. Instead, they said Sayfollah was trying to protect his family's land when he was encircled by a 'mob of settlers' who beat him. Even when an ambulance was called, Sayfollah's family said the settlers blocked the paramedics from reaching his broken body. Sayfollah's younger brother would ultimately help carry his dying brother to emergency responders. The settlers also fatally shot Mohammed al-Shalabi, a 23-year-old Palestinian man, who witnesses said was left bleeding for hours. 'His phone was on, and he wasn't responding,' his mother, Joumana al-Shalabi, told reporters. 'He was missing for six hours. They found him martyred under the tree. They beat him and shot him with bullets.' Palestinians cannot legally possess firearms in the occupied West Bank, but Israeli settlers can. The Israeli government itself has encouraged the settlers to bear arms, including through the distribution of rifles to civilians. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has recorded the killings of at least 964 Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023. And the violence appears to be on the rise. The OHCHR noted that there was a 13-percent increase in the number of killings during the first six months of 2025, compared with the same period last year. 'Pain I can't even describe' An Al Jazeera analysis also found that Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least nine US citizens since 2022, including veteran reporter Shireen Abu Akleh. None of those deaths have resulted in criminal charges, with Washington typically relying on Israel to conduct its own investigations. So far, US President Donald Trump has not directly addressed Sayfollah's killing. When asked in the Oval Office about the fatal beating, Trump deferred to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 'We protect all American citizens anywhere in the world, especially if they're unjustly murdered or killed,' Rubio replied on Trump's behalf. 'We're gathering more information.' Rubio also pointed to a statement issued a day earlier from the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. The ambassador called on Israel to 'aggressively investigate' the attack, saying 'there must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act'. It was a particularly jarring sentiment from Huckabee, who has been a vocal supporter of Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank and has even denied the very existence of a Palestinian people. Nevertheless, no independent, US-led investigation has been announced. According to Israeli media, three Israeli settlers, including a military reservist, were taken into custody following the deadly attack, but all were subsequently released. It has only been four days since Sayfollah's killing, and his family told Al Jazeera the initial shock has only now begun to dissipate. But in its place has come a flood of grief and anger. Muhammad still struggles to accept that he 'died because he was on his own land'. She sees Sayfollah's death as part of a broader pattern of abuses, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza, where Israel has led a war since 2023. 'I see it on the news all the time with other people in the West Bank. I see it in Gaza – the indiscriminate killing of anybody in their way,' she said. 'But when it happens to you, it's just so hard to even fathom,' she added. 'It's pain I can't even describe.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Relatives mourn Palestinian American beaten to death by Israeli settlers: ‘He made everyone feel loved'
When Fatmah Muhammad thinks about her younger cousin Sayfollah Musallet, affectionately known as Saif, she pictures him behind the counter of his ice-cream shop in Tampa Bay, Florida, carefully decorating her knafeh with the same effort he brought to everything else. She makes the dessert from scratch, and would sometimes ship it from California, where the 43-year-old baker lives, so the family legacy could grow nationwide. Saif would sell the Palestinian dessert in his his little Amish-style ice-cream shop that carried international treats from the world over. The inventive 20-year-old would record videos for her, making sure each portion of knafeh was flawless, each layer was positioned exactly right. 'Make sure you get it perfect,' she would tease him from 2,000 miles away. He would go above and beyond, she says. Now, less than a year after opening that shop with dreams of expansion, Saif is dead – beaten to death by Israeli settlers on his family's farm in the occupied West Bank while he was visiting relatives. His death has left a family shattered and a community demanding answers. Zayed Kadur, a close family friend whom Saif called 'uncle', wrestled with all the ways that made his nephew by love special. 'He was just a very rare soul,' he says. 'He made everyone feel important. He made everyone feel loved.' Saif's eldest uncle, Hesam Musallet, said the impact his nephew had on the people closest to him was palpable. 'He would walk into a room and the room would light up,' he says. 'If people were sitting down, he would shake hands with everybody when he walked in, acknowledge them. Old, young – to him, it was all the same.' Customers at the ice-cream shop told Fatmah how if someone came in short on cash, Saif would quietly cover their tab without making them feel embarrassed. 'He really made everyone feel like family,' Fatmah remembers. 'No matter the race, no matter the background, no matter the age. That's just who he was.' Born in Port Charlotte, Florida, Saif was the oldest of four children. His parents had moved the family to Palestine for his elementary and high school years before he returned to the US to live and work. A few years later, the ice-cream shop came to fruition, almost by accident. Saif and his cousins noticed that an ice-cream store near their uncle's coffee shop by the University of South Florida was struggling. When the owner mentioned he might move on from it, Saif called his family immediately. 'That business, when he got it, was a failing business,' Hesam says. 'But he went in there, he turned it around. He had a passion for it … People would just come back for his customer service. He was phenomenal.' For Saif, this summer trip back home to the West Bank village of Baten al-Hawa near Jerusalem was routine – a chance to reconnect with extended family before returning to his shop and the life he was building in Florida ahead of his 21st birthday. His father had swapped places with him, taking his shifts at the ice-cream shop so Saif could hang out with the family. The family Saif was visiting represents generations of connections between Palestine and America. His uncle Hesam, who was born in the United States, explained how his father – Saif's grandfather – had come to the US in the early 1960s. His grandfather first arrived in New York in the early 1900s, spending a few years stateside before returning to the West Bank. 'There's so many people in our town that are American citizens,' Hesam says of their village. 'Most of their children and grandchildren all born here. So they go back and forth, summer vacations there. Everybody goes for summer vacations, weddings. It's just typical.' But on the day he was killed, Saif was at his family's farm in Baten al-Hawa, in Area B of the West Bank – officially under Palestinian administrative control but also under Israeli security control. According to witnesses, settlers had come to the land, chopping down olive trees and burning crops. 'It was a Friday. People will go out and sit around with friends,' Hesam says. 'And that's our land. If there's nobody there, the Israeli settlers, they would just like to come and just put up a tent so they can say it's basically stealing that part of that land.' The confrontation escalated, and Saif was beaten with clubs and bats. His friend Mohammed Nael Hijaz was the first to reach him. 'He was not moving when I got there and he could barely breathe,' Hijaz said. 'There was time to save him.' But ambulances were blocked by Israeli forces for three hours, his family said in a statement. During that time, Saif remained conscious, gasping and vomiting, held in the arms of his younger brother. Another young man, 23-year-old Razek Hussein al-Shalabi, was shot and left to bleed to death in the same attack. When ambulances finally reached them, they too were attacked by settlers. Saif was pronounced dead before reaching the hospital. The Israeli military claimed the altercation developed after stones were thrown at Israelis and said it was looking into the incident. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since the Hamas attack on Israel of 7 October 2023, and at least 9,000 have been injured. Israeli settlers seeking to empty the West Bank of Palestinians have grown increasingly emboldened since then, displacing dozens of communities through violent intimidation campaigns. The family's devastation is compounded by what they see as indifference from the US government. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, posted on social media on Tuesday that Israel must 'aggressively investigate the murder' and that 'there must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act'. But the family is well aware that the prospect of arresting violent settlers is rare. In his first days in office, the Trump administration rescinded Biden-era sanctions on Israeli settler groups accused of attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Still, the family is calling on the state department to conduct its own investigation into Saif's killing. Saif's death isn't the family's only nightmare: Saif's 15-year-old cousin, an American citizen named Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim, has been in Israel's Megiddo prison for four and a half months. His family says he has been accused of throwing rocks, which they deny. He is believed to have lost nearly 30 pounds and developed a severe skin infection while imprisoned, with no family visits or phone calls allowed. 'We have a saying in Arabic,' Kadur says. 'Two hits on your head will hurt. And our family cannot take another blow.' The office of the family's Florida congressman, Republican Mike Haridopolos, confirmed to the Guardian that it has been contacted about Ibrahim. 'We have shared the information we received from his family with the state department and have been informed that the US embassy in Israel is following standard procedures,' his office said. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to a query about the charges against Ibrahim, directing questions to the Israel prison service instead. The Guardian has contacted that agency for comment about Ibrahim's current condition. For those who knew Saif, the tragedy lies not just in how he died, but in everything he'll never get to do. Nearing his 21st birthday, Saif told his father that he was ready to find a wife and settle down. 'He was not just a number,' Fatmah says. 'He was a friend to everyone, a cousin, a son, a grandson. I just don't want him to be forgotten.'
