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Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank
TURMUS AYYA, West Bank—Amid the olive trees and rolling hills of the central West Bank sits a little slice of Americana. The villages of Turmus Ayya and Sinjil are full of American dual nationals who have come to retire or to raise families in a place where their dollars go further and it feels like home. Many speak English as their go-to language, live in large suburban houses and eat in East Coast-style pizza parlors. It is easy to forget where you are until you see the tall, new barbed-wire fence that divides parts of Sinjil and separates much of it from a main road used by both Israeli settlers and Palestinians. It crosses the land of Fuad Daoud, a 55-year-old who splits his time between Sinjil and Florida's breezy west coast, where his wife and 26-year-old son remain. 'It isn't something you can get used to,' he said of the fence, which he watched go up earlier this year. Israel's military said it was erected to prevent rock-throwing onto the roadway below. Now, it is a symbol of the growing tension between Israeli troops and settlers and Palestinians that has shattered the hopes that pulled émigrés back from America to the villages. The fence that was put up earlier this year that crosses Daoud's land. The West Bank village of Turmus Ayya. Daoud, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1993 and spent the bulk of his adult life there before returning to Sinjil to be with his aging father, said there was a time when he would have encouraged his son to live there as well. 'But honestly right now, seeing what I have been seeing, I say no,' he said. Violence by settlers against Palestinians has risen sharply since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza. Places like Turmus Ayya are bearing the brunt. The village sits in a low-lying valley. To its north is a line of around a dozen Israeli settlements and several military positions towering above it from the hilltops. At least three Palestinian-Americans have been killed by Israeli military fire or during attacks from Israeli settlers this year. In April, 14-year-old Palestinian-American Amir Rabee was shot and killed by Israeli forces. Two friends with him were shot, too, including another American teen who survived and is undergoing treatment in New Jersey. The Israeli military said its troops fired at the boys after identifying them as 'three terrorists who were throwing rocks' at a roadway, 'eliminating one and injuring the two others.' The Rabee family disputes that account and says the boys were picking almonds, when Israeli troops sprayed them with gunfire. Rabee was struck 11 times, according to the medical examination conducted after his death. In Sinjil, Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida who was visiting relatives in the West Bank, was beaten to death during an Israeli settler attack in July. The Israeli military said it is investigating the incident and that its mission is to ensure the security of all residents. 'It's a ghost town now,' said Diana Halum, Musallet's 27-year-old Palestinian-American cousin. 'Everybody is really worried, and it is driving people away.' Diana Halum in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Palestinians from the villages emigrated to the Americas in waves beginning early in the 20th century, as clans of peasant farmers sought economic opportunity. Many succeeded in their new lives and then began flowing back to the occupied West Bank in recent decades, bringing the wealth they amassed in the West to build houses and fund infrastructure projects and community centers. Dual nationals make up an estimated 85% of the residents of Turmus Ayya. Many have palatial, red-tiled homes. The municipality has an estimated full-time population of around 3,000, a number that typically swells during the summer, when Palestinian-Americans from the U.S. visit their relatives. 'Palestinian-Americans here are a bridge to the outside world,' said Yaser Alkam, a semiretired family-law attorney who emigrated from Turmus Ayya to Orange County, Calif., in 1987 then returned 35 years later to live out his retirement. 'When I am here, there are freedoms and luxuries in the U.S. that I miss. But when I am in the U.S., I miss the feeling of home, of community—a society where everybody knows each other and you might run into someone four times in a day and shake hands every time.' Dual nationals make up an estimated 85% of the residents of Turmus Ayya. But as Palestinian-Americans began returning home, growing numbers of Israelis began building their own settlements across the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967. Palestinians and much of the world consider the Israeli settlements illegal. Israel regards the West Bank as disputed territory and says most of the settlements are legal. Proponents of the settlements see them as a way to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and ultimately achieve full sovereignty over the West Bank. Earlier this month, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel would move ahead with a controversial settlement expansion near East Jerusalem that 'finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state.' The result is worsening friction. Along the drive to his house in Turmus Ayya, Alkam pointed out plots of land owned by Palestinians that were torched during Israeli settler attacks and others rendered inaccessible by Israeli military restrictions. He drove by the large, empty houses of Palestinian-American neighbors who had left Turmus Ayya out of fear. Village officials say the municipality used to receive applications for about two dozen construction permits a year. Since the war in Gaza began, it has received about four. 'I would rather die in my home than leave,' said Yaser Alkam. 'People are thinking twice about building new homes or moving back here,' said Alkam, who with the mayor's approval set up a municipal department of foreign relations to deal with diaspora affairs and manage Western media attention. 'But I speak for myself when I say I would rather die in my home than leave.' Rights groups and Palestinian-American residents of the villages say settlers who carry out attacks are rarely prosecuted or punished and act with impunity. The Palestinian-Americans said they don't feel protected by the U.S. government and are calling for more American pressure on Israel to rein in extremist settlers and lethal military force on unarmed civilians. American administrations had long condemned the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, seeing them as obstacles to peace and the prospects of an eventual Palestinian state. President Joe Biden raised the pressure by imposing sanctions on settlers linked to violent attacks. President Trump lifted those sanctions and appointed an ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who openly supports settlements. In the home of Amir Rabee, the 14-year-old killed in the almond grove, Palestinian and American flags hung side by side on the wall next to a memorial for the boy. Mohammed Rabee, his father, teared up as he held the bloodied, punctured clothes his son was wearing when he was killed. Mohammed Rabee, whose 14-year-old son Amir was killed by Israeli forces in April. 'In Palestine, we are not treated as Americans,' said Rabee, who has alternated between living in the West Bank and New Jersey, where his family still has a home. 'I don't need the American Embassy to be a messenger between me and Israel. I need them to fight for me.' In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Huckabee said he is sympathetic to concerns from Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank who say the U.S. isn't doing enough to protect them. 'I wouldn't argue with them over it, because until you have been in someone's shoes and lived their lives, you can't know what people feel. So, all I would say is I respect if people feel that way,' Huckabee said. 'Maybe we need to do a better job of communicating, a better job of showing a level of respect.' Huckabee toured Taybeh, another town with a large population of U.S. citizens and one of the few majority-Christian villages in the West Bank, after several Israeli settler attacks, including one that left fields at the foot of an ancient church ablaze, according to local leaders. Fire damage near a church in Taybeh, a majority-Christian village in the West Bank. The church dates back centuries, and the town has many U.S. citizens. Huckabee said he expects Israeli forces to protect Palestinians during settler attacks and apply the law evenly. 'As an American that is so fundamental to what we are supposed to believe—that justice does not wink at some people committing a crime and open both eyes at another,' Huckabee said. Religious, business and political leaders in Taybeh say they are worried the West Bank's depressed economy and intensifying attacks will lead to wide-scale exodus from the tiny town. Its economy relied heavily on tourists coming to view sites mentioned in the Bible, as well as summer visits from its American diaspora. Both have been all but frozen since the war began. The knock-on effect is clearly apparent. Taybeh entrepreneur Nadim Khoury brewed beer in his Boston dorm room while at college in the 1980s. When he returned to his hometown in 1994 to launch a brewery with his brother, it became the most renowned Palestinian brewery and grew to include a winery, distillery and eco-hotel. Nadim Khoury in his brewery in Taybeh. Production today is down 90% from prewar levels, and the hotel is closed for lack of visitors. Checkpoints, settler attacks around a crucial source of spring water and difficulties obtaining permits have hampered imports and exports, Khoury said. 'There has been so much strain,' Khoury said as he sank in his chair, sipping a beer in his now largely quiet brewery. Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank
Arab News
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Family of Palestinian-American teen killed by Israeli troops seeks justice, US govt response
CHICAGO: The family of Palestinian-American Amer Rabee, 14, who was killed on April 6 by Israeli soldiers while picking almonds near his home in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayyah, is seeking justice and a response from the US government, his uncle Rami Jbara said. The family has not heard 'a single word of remorse or concern' from the US government, Jbara, who lives in the state of New Jersey, told Arab News. He said Rabee was shot dead while with two other Palestinian-American boys, Ayoub Assad and Abdul Rahman Shehadeh. 'The US will move its army for any American citizen in the whole world except in Israel,' he added. 'These kids … were unarmed. They had no weapons on them. They're 13 and 14 years old.' Jbara said his nephew was shot 'all over — his head, his shoulders, his stomach, his legs,' adding that Rabee was in the West Bank studying at the local high school, living with his parents who had moved back there from New Jersey. Jbara said Rabee's father protested to the US Embassy in Jerusalem, adding that this was not the first incident with soldiers or settlers from the settlement of Shiloh just north of Turmus Ayyah. Settlers have been harassing the town's residents for years, but the harassment has increased in the past year with 'no response' from Israel's government, police or military, he added. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, representing New Jersey, said Rabee's death 'is another devastating reminder of the horrific human cost of ongoing conflict and tensions in the region. 'There must be a full and transparent accounting of the circumstances around his death and the actions of Israeli security forces.' Booker added: 'I call on the Trump administration to reinstate sanctions on perpetrators of such violence, which directly threatens the objectives of protecting innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians and preventing the war in Gaza and tensions in the West Bank from escalating into a wider regional conflict.' Palestinians at the Palestinian American Community Center in the city of Clifton, New Jersey, told Arab News that they are meeting to determine how to raise the issue of Rabee's killing with the US government and to raise awareness of Israeli violence.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian American Teen In Occupied West Bank
Israeli forces shot three Palestinian American teenagers in the occupied West Bank on Sunday ― killing one of them in what is the latest incident of the military targeting U.S. citizens, usually without consequence. A group of children were protesting an Israeli raid at the village of Turmus Ayya when Israeli soldiers opened fire on them, hitting three teenage boys who are U.S. citizens, according to local media and the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Two 15-year-old Palestinian American boys, Ayoub Jabara and Abdulrahman Shihada, were rushed to a hospital to get treatment for their wounds, according to the village's mayor Adeeb Lafi. But Israeli soldiers detained the third, 14-year-old Amer Mohammad Saada Rabee, before paramedics could get him help. Israeli troops shot Rabee 11 times, according to the Palestinian American Community Center (PACC). The New Jersey teen was pronounced dead in custody. Video on the ground shows Rabee's mother kissing her son's lifeless body during his funeral in Ramallah on Monday. PACC, based in New Jersey, held a prayer service in honor of the boy, whose death the group said was 'entirely preventable and horrifically unjust.' 'Amer was killed for speaking out at a time when the U.S. and Israel are doing everything they can to crush dissent, but we will not be silenced,' Illinois state Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, a fellow Palestinian American whose family is also from Turmus Ayya, told HuffPost on Tuesday. The Democrat said he's spoken to some of Rabee's relatives in Chicago, who are 'understandably heartbroken.' The Israel Defense Force has confirmed the attack, justifying the shooting by saying the teens ― only referred to as 'terrorists' ― were 'endangering civilians' by throwing rocks at the highway. 'By labeling children who throw stones as 'terrorists,' Israel entrenches a fabricated system above international law, violating its fundamental rules and principles, fabricating pretexts for killing, and entrenching its policy of institutionalised, systematic and unlawful violence and persecution against Palestinians,' Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor posted on X. 'The killing of children is not self-defense. Stone-throwing is not terrorism,' the Geneva-based rights group continued. 'What Israel is committing is fully-fledged apartheid violence and relentless settler-colonial violence – ongoing, and met with impunity.' Rabee is the latest American to be killed by Israeli forces, an all-too-frequent occurrence that almost never resulted in consequences under the Biden administration. An Israeli airstrike killed Michigan-based Dr. Kamel Ahmad Jawad in October while he was helping injured civilians in Lebanon. An Israeli sniper killed Turkish American student Ayşenur Eygi in September for protesting the occupation in the West Bank. An off-duty Israeli soldier killed Palestinian American teen Tawfiq Abdel Jabbar in January while he was visiting family in the West Bank. Israeli soldiers beat and detained Palestinian American Omar Assad while he was driving home in the West Bank in January 2022, eventually dying of a heart attack after they left the elderly man in the cold still handcuffed. An Israeli sniper killed high-profile Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022, while she was covering Israeli raids on the West Bank city of Jenin. An Israeli soldier ran a military bulldozer over American activist Rachel Corrie in March 2003, killing her while she was protesting the occupation in Gaza. Despite repeated calls for accountability from both Israel and the U.S., the Justice Department has never pursued prosecution in these cases. The White House, regardless of who occupies it, has nearly always deferred to the Israeli military's self-investigations, which when announced have rarely led to consequences. The IDF did not answer HuffPost's repeated questions as to whether there would be an independent investigation in Rabee's death, nor if there were any consequences that came out of the investigation into Eygi's death. 'We know the frustration of hearing Israel scrambling to falsely justify the targeting and killing of a loved one, as if anything justifies the killing of this child,' Eygi's family said in a statement on Monday. 'We remember our rage seeing the unwillingness of our government to seek justice for the killing of one of its own citizens, despite our repeated calls for accountability.' 'If Ayşenur's killing had been investigated and those responsible had been held accountable, maybe [Amer] would be alive today,' the family continued. 'The impunity afforded to Israel by the United States, as well as its allowance on billions of dollars in weapons sales to Israel, allows Israel to continue its killing of American citizens.' The Trump administration is now facing calls to reinstate sanctions on violent settlers and to investigate Rabee's killing, including by both New Jerseysenators and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce would not answer reporters' questions about a possible investigation, only sending condolences to the teenagers' families. 'We are not calling for special treatment – only equal protection under the law for all Americans, regardless of their ethnic or religious identity,' CAIR said in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. 'When Americans are murdered abroad, especially by actors from a U.S.-funded foreign military like Israel, our government has an obligation to respond with the full force of U.S. law. Failure to do so perpetuates injustice and undermines the principle that every American life matters.' The Sunday shooting is also part of a spike in violence against Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, including a larger offensive in the northern region that has killed at least 99 people and displaced tens of thousands, according to the United Nations. While Palestinians in the West Bank continue to face such threats, Israeli forces have kept up their 18-month destruction of Gaza, where UN officials say children have bore the brunt of the violence and displacement. 'We know that [Amer's] killing, like Ayşenur's, has only garnered attention in America because he was a US citizen, and we also know there are thousands of other [Amer's] and Ayşenur's killed by Israel whose stories have not been told, simply because of where they were born,' Eygi's family said. 'Israel must not only be held accountable for the killing of [Amer] and Ayşenur, but also for its continued genocide of the Palestinian people.'
New York Times
08-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Death of Palestinian American Boy in West Bank Sparks Outcry
Members of northern New Jersey's Palestinian community gathered on Tuesday to condemn the recent killing of a Palestinian American boy by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. The boy, Amer Rabee, 14, was shot and killed in the town of Turmus Aya on Sunday, his family said. Two other Palestinian American teenagers who were with Amer at the time were shot and injured by the soldiers, the family said. Amer, who was originally from Saddle Brook, N.J., moved with his family to the West Bank around 2013. The family said that since then, it had divided its time between the West Bank and New Jersey. At a news conference on Tuesday, community leaders stood at a small wooden lectern at the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, N.J., to decry Amer's death and call on the U.S. government to investigate the shooting. They were joined by Rami Jbara, an uncle of Amer's, and by Amer's father, Mohammed Rabee, who called in remotely from the West Bank. 'We cannot let this horrific crime be swept under the rug,' said Rania Mustafa, the center's executive director. 'Our stories are consistently ignored,' she added. 'Our people are consistently dehumanized. Our deaths are repeatedly ignored.' The outcry over Amer's death comes weeks after Israel launched a series of attacks on Gaza, breaking a cease-fire agreement in its war against Hamas. Just over 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank since Hamas's attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the United Nations. Roughly 30 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank during the same period. When asked Tuesday about Amer's death, the Israel Defense Forces did not acknowledge the boy by name. 'During a counterterrorism activity in the area of Turmus Aya, I.D.F. soldiers identified three terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving,' a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement. 'The soldiers opened fire toward the terrorists who were endangering civilians, eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists.' At the news conference, Mr. Rabee, 49, recounted the events surrounding his son's death. He said he had been at home taking a nap on Sunday when Amer left to pick almonds. Mr. Rabee said he later woke to a phone call in which he learned that his son had been wounded. Mr. Rabee said he had called the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem seeking medical help, but that the aid did not arrive in time. He said he learned an hour later that his son was dead and that his body had been taken to an Israeli military camp. It was there, several hours later, that he found his son's body in a bag, Mr. Rabee said. Ayoub Ijbara, one of the teenagers with Amer on Sunday, was shot three times, but managed to flee and find help, according a statement from the community center, whose members spoke to Ayoub's family. Surveillance footage showed that the soldiers fired 47 shots at the three boys while they were picking almonds, according to the statement. 'Amer was shot in the chest and fell backward to the ground,' the statement said. 'The other two boys went to help him, but too many shots were fired and so they began to retreat.' Ayoub, 15, had a six-hour surgery on Monday and is scheduled to have another procedure on Wednesday, according to the statement. The boy was born in Little Ferry, N.J., the community center said, and moved to Tennessee before he and his family relocated to Turmus Aya. Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey called Amer's death an 'atrocity' in an X post on Monday. The state's governor, Philip D. Murphy, demanded in a statement that the Israeli government provide answers about why Amer had been killed, lamenting the 'tragic loss of life.' The Israel Defense Forces sent a black-and-white video with its statement on Tuesday that it said showed Amer and the two other teenagers throwing rocks. Mr. Rabee said he had seen the video and that there was no way to tell if Amer was one of the three people. Even if he was, Mr. Rabee said, Amer did not deserve to die. 'This land is called holy land,' Mr. Rabee said. 'There's supposed to be peace in this land, not war.'
CBS News
08-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Family of Palestinian American teen shot by Israeli forces in West Bank calls for justice
Family members of a Palestinian American teenager killed in the West Bank spoke out Tuesday in New Jersey. Amer Rabee, a 14-year-old United States citizen who grew up in Saddle Brook, was shot and killed Sunday by Israeli forces. His family moved to Turmus Ayya, in the central West Bank, in 2013. Amer's uncle, Rami Jbara, spoke at Clifton's Palestinian American Community Center, while Amer's father spoke virtually from the West Bank. "What was done was murder," Jbara said. "A killing of a child." "He had 11 shots. Two in his stomach, one in his leg, and two to his hand and two in his heart," father Mohammed Rabee said. Rabee described his son as a straight A eighth grader who loved being with his friends. "He got many friends here in Turmus Ayya, and everyone is crying here," he said. The Israeli military released a video allegedly showing the shooting. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that IDF soldiers had "identified three terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving. The soldiers opened fire towards the terrorists who were endangering civilians, eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists." "The video is black and white. It's not clear. No one can tell me that is my son," Rabee said. "Even if he did it, you can do many different ways to stop that," Rabee said. The family says they picked out the sound of more than 40 gunshots in security camera audio of the incident, saying the two other teens injured are also Palestinian Americans. Tammy Bruce, with the State Department, said, "There is an investigation that is going on. We are aware of the reports from the IDF that this was a counterterrorism act. We need to learn more about the nature of what happened on the ground." "I would beg the Israeli authorities to be as transparent as they can be in terms of the details on how this happened," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said. Rabee father says the one thing he and his family are praying for is peace in the region.
