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By Theia Chatelle / Truthout
Red poppies dot the hillside in the West Bank where Israeli settlers from the Neve Erez outpost killed 19-year-old Palestinian American Nasrallah Abu Siyam, a U.S. citizen born in Philadelphia.
On February 22, Abu Siyam’s closest friends gathered with a village elder to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial on a hill overlooking Mukhmas, the Palestinian village in the West Bank where the Israeli settlers killed Abu Siyam. The winter rains have come to Israel and the West Bank, but Abu Siyam’s blood had not been washed from the ground. Stones surrounded the site of his killing, marked with a Palestinian flag.
The group of 12 knelt and recited prayers with the village elder, who urged them to focus on prayer and reflection during the holy month of Ramadan instead of revenge. Abu Siyam was the sixth Palestinian American killed by Israeli settlers or the Israeli military in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. More than 230 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank last year.
Present at the makeshift memorial service was a Palestinian American named Akram Abu Ali, who lives in Bergen, New Jersey, and works in wholesale supply. Abu Ali told Truthout that he knew the Abu Siyam family from growing up in the village and was at the scene in Mukhmas when Israeli settlers killed Abu Siyam. He said he was visiting his family in Mukhmas for Ramadan, as he does every year, and did not expect violence.
Like many West Bank villages, Mukhmas has a significant Palestinian American population, Abu Ali said. This is the result of a wave of immigration from the West Bank to the United States following the Six-Day War in 1967 and Israel’s occupation of the territory. Those who were able to leave passed their U.S. citizenship to their children and grandchildren.
Turmus Ayya, a wealthy Palestinian town in the central West Bank, has a Palestinian American population in the thousands and is frequently targeted in settler attacks. According to Abu Ali, an eyewitness to the events on the hillside, the trouble began when seven or eight settlers entered a sheep pen and began leading hundreds of sheep away from the village toward Ma’ale Mikhmas.
In response to increasing settler violence, the village council had installed a security system with cameras and motion detectors. When word spread in a village WhatsApp group that settlers were stealing sheep, a group of Palestinian youth went out to confront them. Footage of the incident shows Palestinian youth throwing rocks at the settlers, who then called the Israeli military.
About 40 minutes later, Israeli forces arrived and deployed tear gas and stun grenades. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Palestinians were injured by settler fire and beatings by Israeli forces.
Abu Ali and other eyewitnesses, who spoke to Truthout on the condition of anonymity, said one settler — who has not been publicly identified — warned the group: “If you guys get close, I’m gonna shoot you.” Palestinians responded, “All we want is the kid. We are not here to fight. We just want to, you know, don’t kill this kid that you guys are beating on.”
Abu Siyam was struck in the leg. Another Palestinian was shot in the leg after a bullet deflected off a phone in his pocket. Four people were injured in the attack, in addition to Abu Siyam, who died on the way to a hospital in Ramallah.
Independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who spoke with family members and eyewitnesses, reported that the ambulance was held at a checkpoint while exiting the village, adding to the delay. Palestinians in the West Bank have frequently reported being held up at checkpoints while en route to hospitals.
Médecins Sans Frontières, in its February 2025 report “Inflicting Harm and Denying Care,” documented dozens of cases of Palestinians seeking medical care who were impeded by the Israeli military at checkpoints.
After news of Abu Siyam’s death, the U.S. State Department said: “We can confirm the death of a U.S. citizen in the West Bank on Feb. 18. We extend our deepest condolences to the family and expect a full, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death.”
The U.S. has a long track record of failing to hold the Israeli government accountable for investigating and prosecuting those who kill U.S. citizens in the West Bank. On July 11, 2024, Palestinian American Sayfollah Musallet was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in Sinjil in the occupied West Bank, but the U.S. did not launch an independent investigation.
Abu Siyam was the first person from the village killed by Israeli settlers — a grim milestone that residents said does not bode well for Mukhmas.
“What’s stopping these guys from coming in tomorrow, burning houses, burning cars, stealing more sheep, or maybe going into homes and stealing furniture?” Abu Ali said. “We are a village. We’re choked. There is nowhere for us to go. We’re stuck here.”
In recent years, several new settler outposts have been established on the hilltops surrounding Mukhmas, leading to more frequent confrontations. Such incidents, along with expanding settlements, have prompted Israeli and international activists to establish protective presence patrols in the village in hopes of deterring violence.
Abu Ali said he fears that young people, who, unlike him, are not permitted to leave the West Bank, could be driven to retaliate and risk their lives. “Focus on other things,” he said. “They’re young. Just stay away. Even if they come, you guys have to stay away.”
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, former director of Rabbis for Human Rights and founder of Torat Tzedek, spends many nights in Mukhmas as part of a protective presence effort. He has worked to counter settler violence for more than two decades.
“We have reached a tipping point where our work is becoming less and less effective. We just can’t keep up,” Ascherman said.
He said the killing marked another red line, with settlers increasingly targeting Palestinian population centers in Area A, which is nominally governed by the Palestinian Authority, rather than limiting attacks to rural enclaves in Israeli-controlled Area C, which have historically been more vulnerable to displacement.
Abu Ali said his family owns land on the outskirts of the village but cannot access it because it lies in Area C, where they say they face harassment from Israeli soldiers and settlers. “It’s not close to the settlement,” he said. “But it’s like, you’re not allowed to go there.”
Khalid, a West Bank resident who works at a supermarket in Mukhmas and asked to be identified by first name only for safety reasons, said conditions have deteriorated over the past year, with more frequent incursions by settlers from nearby outposts.
Many settler attacks occur in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control and home to many Bedouin communities that have struggled to secure land claims or building permits, leaving them vulnerable to displacement.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared in a video posted on X by Mustafa Barghouti informing a Palestinian Bedouin resident that his home was under a demolition order because it had been built without authorization from the Israeli Civil Administration. In the video, he says: “We took Tel Aviv, we took Be’er Sheva, and you think you will stay here?”
Following Abu Siyam’s death, the UN secretary-general urged Israeli authorities “to take concrete steps to halt and prevent all acts of violence by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian population” in line with Israel’s “obligations as the occupying power.”
Noah Benninga, academic director of the Center for Research on Dutch Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been involved in protective presence activism since the COVID-19 pandemic. He has spent many sleepless nights in Mukhmas, documenting incidents of settler violence in hopes that his presence as an Israeli Jew would deter attacks.
“Until October 7, the activism still largely worked,” Benninga said. “But now everything has changed. It just doesn’t work like it used to. We keep showing up, and increasingly, Palestinians are displaced from one village, only to be chased to the next by Israeli settlers.”
Shops in Mukhmas remained closed as the community observed a period of mourning. Posters declaring Abu Siyam’s martyrdom were plastered across the village. Some youth taped posters to the hoods of their cars as they drove through the streets.
“Everyone knows everyone here,” Abu Ali said. “It’s a small village.” With so many Americans, he added, residents joke that “just like the Israelis, we’re going to set up a toll at the entrance for the Americans to contribute when they come back.”
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