‘Life cut short': American man's killing in West Bank highlights scourge of Israeli settler violence

The National

6 days ago

In a weathered strip mall in Tampa, wedged between a smoke shop and a small brewery, an ice cream parlour dishes out scoops of brightly coloured sherbet, experimental baklava and pistachio-filled Dubai chocolate concoctions – cold treats fitting for the dense humidity of Florida summers.
On most days, patrons could find the manager and part-owner of Ice Screamin', 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet – Sayf, to those who knew him – behind the counter.
'He wanted to spread sweetness through all he did. That's literally what he did for a living,' his cousin, Fatmah Muhammad, told The National. 'He just excelled in everything he did. He wanted to do it perfectly.'
Just before his 21st birthday, his family says, he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers while visiting relatives for the summer at their home in the occupied West Bank. His close friend, Mohammad Rizq Al Shalabi, was reportedly shot dead, and 10 others were injured in the same attack.
Mr Musallet, a US citizen born raised in Florida, is now among more than 900 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank since Israel's war on Gaza began after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, according to UN figures. He's the ninth American killed in the West Bank since 2022.
His death has sparked an international outcry, including from US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who described the killing as a terrorist act.
The Tampa Bay area, where Mr Musallet lived with his parents and brother, is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in Florida, which in turn is the US state with the fifth-highest number of Arab-Americans.
'Outnumbered'
Daylight still shone when Mr Musallet and a group of about eight friends left Friday congregational prayers on June 11, marking the start of the weekend.
That Friday should have been no different than any other. Mr Musallet and friends sauntered down the hill from the mosque in their village of Al Mazraa Al Sharkiya, north-east of Ramallah, talking about their families, their latest investment ideas, who among them might get married next.
They were headed towards what they call 'the Batin', a shallow valley surrounding its namesake hill, Jabal Batin, and marked by terraced groves of sturdy olive and fig trees. The area is dotted with Israeli settlements: Maale Levona, one of the largest, sits on top of Jabal Batin.
Several of the young men made their way to a local coffee shop in the Batin for a cup of freshly juiced mint lemonade, their handy saj – a dome-shaped metal cooking pot – in tow, ready for use at a small barbecue, or sajiyyeh, held among themselves on land passed down through generations.
'Before you know it, all hell breaks loose,' one witness, who was among the men attacked that day, told The National. 'Settlers come just running straight at us and they outnumbered us by a lot.'
He said as many as 100 settlers, many holding rocks, encircled his group. Such a sight is familiar on social media, which is rife with footage of similar violence. The group feared the settlers were concealing firearms.
'We looked up on top of us, it's raining rocks,' said the witness, who described hearing bullets fly past their ears. 'It was just hell. The best way to explain it was hell.'
The witness, a friend of Mr Musallet's who asked not to be identified for fear of Israeli reprisal, said the group ran. Mr Al Shalabi was the fastest. He looked back now and then to warn that the settlers were in pursuit, but after a while, the group lost sight of him.
'We thought he lasted a few hours like us, but no,' the witness said. 'I remember hearing one gunshot and I'm pretty sure that was whenever he was killed.'
The group, now a couple of men down, continued to run across the mountain as settlers pelted them with rocks, the witness said. One of the young men was hit in the legs and groin.
After a long stretch of running, the witness said he himself collapsed from exhaustion. Now sheltered underneath an olive tree, still in afternoon daylight, he faced Mr Musallet for what would be the last time.
The witness said he encouraged Mr Musallet and the others to continue towards their village. 'I keep regretting saying that, because maybe, maybe my friend would have been saved if he stayed with me.'
The last words he would hear from Mr Musallet were in Arabic: 'Strengthen your heart.'
'Till now, I can't figure out if that was to me or to himself, or for me to send that message to his father or for his mother,' he said. 'I honestly do not know, because he wasn't looking at me when he was saying that.'
The witness later learnt one of the friends remained with Mr Musallet, who by then had already been severely beaten, and tried to carry him to safety. But soon unable to physically support him any longer, that friend made the decision to leave and seek help for Mr Musallet, the witness said. They were able to call an ambulance but, according to Mr Musallet's family, settlers blocked it from reaching him.
Eventually, Mr Musallet's younger brother led a charge from the village to reach him on foot.
'Sayf was able to take his last breath in front of his brother, and then he passed away right in front of his younger brother. Imagine that,' the witness said.
The Israeli military told The National that "a joint investigation was opened by the Israel Police and the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division", but did not respond specifically to allegations by the family and witnesses.
Village life disrupted
The Friday afternoon post-prayer rendezvous at the Batin is a regular ritual during the young men's summers in Al Mazraa Al Sharkiya. That's village life epitomised, says Reem Qarout, a cousin of Mr Musallet's. A Palestinian-American from California, she said she has spent the past few summers with family in the West Bank. She describes it in one word: warmth.
'It's just a constant sense that everyone is there for each other,' she said. 'You need someone, and it takes one phone call and they will be there.'
In the summertime, she said, the village is flooded with visitors from the US, like herself and the Musallets.
'We just go to people's houses, and you'll find everyone sitting in beautiful backyards, courtyards, all drinking tea, laughing. It's just this beautiful energy.'
But the last few days of this summer's trip, she said from her home in southern California, were unlike anything she had experienced there before.
'Everyone was absolutely heart-broken, shattered, no one had any energy,' she said. 'I hope people don't think, 'Oh, they're used to this, this happens on the daily for them'. With every single person this happens to – every single young man, young lady, every single elder – it is just as devastating.'
Mr Musallet is remembered as a 'pure, kind-hearted, religious' young man who never missed a prayer and cared deeply for the shabab he'd spend most of his time with on those summer visits back at his family home.
'Sayfollah was the type that, you know, whenever he came into the room, that's it. Your day will change for the good,' his friend, the eyewitness, said. 'He was a good son, a good brother, a good friend. He was the best of the best for everything.'
This summer, Mr Musallet had a mission he'd made clear to his parents: he'd hoped to come back with a fiancee.
'He always bugged his dad, and his dad kept on telling him, 'Inshallah, just give it some time.' And that time was finally this summer,' the same friend said. 'I'm not even going to say every day – every 10 minutes I would get a call, or he would just pull up to my house and we would have a conversation.'
There has been a surge in settler violence in the West Bank since October 2023. Israeli settlements there are illegal under international law, which recognises the Palestinian Authority's full jurisdiction over the territories. But Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, with Palestinian areas thinning out steadily since.
'We go to Haifa, we go to Yaffa, we go to Jerusalem,' Ms Qarout said. 'And you do find settlers there, but they're not running up to you to kill you. It's just in the West Bank, they're absolutely vicious.'
For some, like Ms Qarout, being a Palestinian-American brings mixed feelings.
'It's very unfortunate that, because of a little blue booklet, we have more privilege,' she said, referring to her US passport. 'Sayfollah's getting more attention because he's American, but there are so many Palestinians who have been killed who we'll never know about.'
Home in the Sunshine State
Born in Port Charlotte, Florida, Mr Musallet had come to know the peninsula's Gulf coast intimately. It's where a significant portion of the estimated 200,000 Arab-Americans who live in Florida have settled over decades, many of whom still have active roots in the West Bank.
A cluster of families in Tampa call the West Bank home, whether their kin is in Sinjil, Turmus Aya, or Ramallah. In fact, that cluster of villages just north-west of Ramallah is known for its Palestinian-American population.
A knack for sweets runs in the family. Ms Muhammad, who sells Palestinian sweets at her own business, Knafeh Queens, made famous by Instagram, had a spot carved out for her at her cousin's ice cream shop.
'A lot of shops sell knafeh. But the way he presented it … I would joke, 'Oh, my God, you're presenting it better than how I would. You can't do better than me!''
Since his death, she's used her following to raise awareness of violence in the occupied West Bank and demand justice for Mr Musallet.
'It's just heart-breaking to know that someone who went just to vacation and see his family and to spend time on his land couldn't even do that,' Ms Muhammad said. 'His life was cut short. He had such big dreams.'
Beyond the walls of Ice Screamin', the Palestinian population in Tampa exists at odds with state and local politics.
Shortly after the Hamas attack on southern Israel and the start of Israel's war in Gaza, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis banned Palestinian student groups from two state college campuses and said the US should not accept any Palestinian refugees. The same month, he chartered a private plane to bring back 270 Americans from Israel.
Florida Senator Rick Scott recently signed legislation to 'protect Israel in the UN', his website says. It would cut off 'US funding to any UN agency that expels, suspends, downgrades, or otherwise restricts the participation of Israel.'
And last month, Israeli drone maker Xtend opened an assembly plant in Tampa, where it intends to finalise production of 3,000 strike and surveillance quadcopter systems a month.
'At the [factory] opening, the mayor of Tampa was there, and just had this big smile,' said Lama Alhasan, a Palestinian-American community organiser with the Tampa Bay Area Dream Defenders, a branch of a wider activist group. 'We know that these are the things that attack Palestinians. And it's right here in our backyard.'
That backyard is a small world. Ms Alhasan said she realised after the fact that she had encountered members of the Musallet family at various community events.
'I want to highlight the refusal to even acknowledge Sayfollah by the local officials here, and it obviously has to do with him being Palestinian,' she said. 'What happened to Sayfollah Musallet is not just something that happened 3,000 miles away.'
Mohamad Khatib had the same idea. He's a member of the branch of the Democratic Party in Pasco County, next to Tampa, who submitted a motion to the party's executive committee to recognise Sayfollah Musallet and condemn violence in the West Bank.
He told The National he thought he could 'capitalise on the party's motivation' to bring back an Arab-American voting bloc that had fractured under the Biden administration over its almost unfettered support for Israel.
The motion failed. 'The Democrats are not used to taking bold positions,' Mr Khatib said. 'They pushed back, saying that international policies should be held not by the local committee, but the party in general.'
'Not the same'
From the Tampa Bay Area and beyond, the Musallet family has called for an independent, US-led investigation into the attack and the perpetrators.
The US Department of State has the task of responding to incidents affecting Americans abroad. All complaints – from lost or stolen passports to violent crime or natural disasters – affecting US citizens are directed to the State Department.
Four days after Mr Musallet's killing, Mr Huckabee, the US ambassador, said the attack was a 'terrorist act' and called for an independent investigation. The announcement came as a surprise to many, given Mr Huckabee's strident support for Israel that includes referring to the West Bank by its Biblical name, Judea and Samaria.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment from The National.
The State Department acknowledged the death of an American citizen in the West Bank the day after the attack. Five days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his department was 'gathering more information'.
The standard response, according to James Zogby, founding president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute and a contributor to The National, goes further.
'Number one is a formal meeting with the family,' he told The National. 'Number two is a very strong statement of condemnation and a demand for an inquiry into what happened, and I would not at this point leave it to the Israelis to investigate, as was the case with Shireen [Abu Akleh]', the Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist who was shot dead by an Israeli soldier while working in the West Bank in 2022.
Former president Joe Biden's administration had imposed economic sanctions against some settlers and groups to try to dissuade them from committing violence against Palestinians. The Trump administration scrapped these.
'There's no administration that's done any better,' Mr Zogby said. 'The victim is Palestinian, the perpetrator is Israeli, the US government is enabling them to do it and Palestinian lives are just not viewed as the same.'
This is a grievance echoed across the Palestinian community, American or not. The death of Mr Al Shalabi, who was not American, is receiving even less attention.
Mr Musallet's friend who witnessed the attack said when the settlers approached, he had flashed them his US passport, which he said he always carries in the West Bank.
'I speak in English, I say I'm American,' he said. 'They do not care.'
That's no discouragement for Mr Musallet's surviving relatives.
'People say, why go [to the West Bank] if it's like that?' Ms Muhammad recounts. 'We will not give up, even if every single one of us has to die for our country and for our people."
As for her cousin: 'All we want is justice for him. We will fight and speak out till the end.'