‘It was a field execution': Family mourns after Israel fatally shoots 14-year-old American Amer Rabee in West Bank
Hundreds of mourners assembled in the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya on Monday for the funeral of Amer Rabee, a 14-year-old U.S. citizen who Israeli forces fatally shot the previous day.
Rabee, a former resident of Saddle Brook, New Jersey, was shot numerous times while out picking green almonds with two friends, according to his family.
Rabee's father, Mohammed, accused the Trump administration of turning a 'blind eye' to the killing, even as the president met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
"It was a field execution," he told CBS News.
"We have to … send a message for President Trump to at least stop this situation," he added. "Stop sending weapons to kill."
The Israeli government said in a statement it shot three 'terrorists' who were throwing rocks at a highway, putting civilians at risk.
The Israeli military released a video of the incident. The grainy black-and-white footage shows three individuals, one of whom appears to throw something, though it's not possible to identify the figures in the footage.
במהלך פעילות מבצעית של לוחמים מיחידה 636 במרחב תורמוסעייא שבחטיבת שומרון, הכוח זיהה שלושה מחבלים אשר יידו סלעים לעבר כביש מהיר עם רכבים אזרחיים. הלוחמים ירו לעבר המחבלים שהיוו סכנה על האזרחים, חיסלו אחד מהם ופגעו בשני המחבלים הנוספים. כוחות צה״ל ימשיכו לפעול בהגנה ובהתקפה… pic.twitter.com/gqeasTE2HC
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) April 6, 2025
Another American citizen, Ayoub Jabara, 15, was wounded in the shooting and rushed to a hospital in Ramallah, Turmus Ayya mayor Lafi Shalabi told The Washington Post.
'This is an atrocity,' Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey wrote in a statement on X. 'How can the Israeli military possibly justify shooting and killing an American teenager in cold blood? The U.S. must step in and stop this madness.'
The State Department has declined to comment on the shooting at this time, citing family privacy, it told CNN.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment. It does not appear Trump and Netanyahu publicly discussed the shooting of the Palestinian-American boy.
The killing follows the deaths of other Americans in the midst of the conflict, including Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, who was killed last January, and Mohammad Ahmad Alkhdour, who was killed the following month. Israeli police have said that an Israeli soldier and a settler were involved in a 'firearm discharge' near where Jabbar died. An eyewitness claimed someone shot Alkhdour from a military road, but officials of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said no soldiers were present.
Last September, Israeli forces shot and killed Aysenur Eygi, a Turkish-American activist who was in the West Bank to protest Israel's ongoing military presence and the continued expansion of Jewish settlements, which many observers argue are illegal under international law.
The IDF said at the time of Eygi's death that an initial investigation showed it was 'very likely' she was shot in the head 'unintentionally' during 'a violent riot.' The Washington Post subsequently reported she was shot more than 30 minutes after a large protest had occurred and activists moved more than 200 yards away from Israeli forces.
As The Independent has reported, some Palestinian-Americans have felt 'abandoned' by the U.S. in the midst of the Israel-Hamas conflict, including U.S. citizens who were stranded in southern Gaza as Israel's U.S.-supplied military destroyed large parts of the city of Rafah.
Amid attempts to reach a durable ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the IDF has pursued an offensive in the occupied West Bank, including sending in tanks for the first time in decades.
The fighting has displaced thousands of Palestinians.
Trump announced on Monday that the U.S. is 'looking at another ceasefire' after Israel broke a previous agreement by striking Hamas.
Trump has taken action to deport student and faculty activists expressing support for Palestine or participating in pro-Gaza protests at American universities.
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