Musalat One of Seven US Citizens Murdered by Israelis in the West Bank Since 2022
The U.S. government should investigate and ensure accountability for the murder of 20-year-old Florida native Saif al-Din Musalat, whom Israeli settlers beat to death on July 11, 2025 in the West Bank village of Sinjil in the occupied Palestinian territory. The U.S. has failed to meaningfully investigate or hold accountable the Israeli murderers of at least six other U.S. citizens since 2022.
“The very least President Trump can do is demand an investigation into the savage murder of this young American man and insist that the extremist Israeli settlers who beat him to death are held accountable,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director. “The reason Israelis keep killing American citizens is because they know they can get away with it, confident that the U.S. government will not hold them accountable.”
On July 11, 2025, Israeli settlers invaded the West Bank village of Sinjil, where they confronted Musalat and beat him to death. Musalat, who was visiting family for the summer, was protesting the construction of a new illegal Israeli outpost on village land in al‑Mazra’a ash‑Sharqiya when Israeli settlers attacked him, according to his family. Musalat’s family reported that the settlers prevented medics from accessing Musalat for over three hours; he was declared dead upon arrival at a hospital. The same settlers also shot and killed Mohammed Rizq Hussein al-Shalabi, 23, who was also left to bleed for hours.
“Ambassador Huckabee should do his job and demand that the Israeli government bring to justice those responsible for this despicable crime,” said DAWN Senior Advisor Charles Blaha, a 32-year State Department veteran. “It bears reminding that the protection of American citizens overseas is the first duty of our embassies.”
The Israeli military said that it was looking into the matter, confirming that the settlers were carrying out “the vandalism of Palestinian property, arson, and physical clashes.” As of July 12, 2025, Israeli police had arrested six people in relation to Musalat’s killing, although no charges had been announced.
Israel’s track record of investigating and holding accountable Israeli soldiers and settlers for killing American citizens, Palestinian-Americans, journalists, and Palestinians, has not been transparent, credible or reliable. Israeli authorities have taken no serious punitive measures against the perpetrators of previous killings of U.S. citizens, including Rachel Corrie, Orwah Hammad, Mahmoud Shaalan, Omar Asad, Shireen Abu-Akleh, Ayşenur Eygi, and three American children: Amer Rabee, a 14-year-old Palestinian-American child from New Jersey; Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a 17-year-old Palestinian-American child from Louisiana; and Mohammad Alkhdour, a 17-year-old Palestinian-American child from Florida.
According to data from Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, the “probability of an Israeli soldier facing prosecution for killing Palestinians is just 0.4% – one prosecution in 219 fatalities brought to the military’s attention.” When it comes to Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the chances for accountability are just as bleak. Between the years of 2005 and 2024, Yesh Din’s monitoring found that “only 3% of investigations into ideologically motivated crime against Palestinians in the West Bank led to a full or partial conviction. This low conviction rate has – for at least two decades – signaled that law enforcement agencies do not take settler violence seriously, enhancing the perpetrators’ sense of immunity and encouraging the recurrence of these acts.”
The U.S. government can take several actions to ensure accountability for U.S. citizens killed abroad, including diplomatic pressure, conducting its own independent investigations, seeking extradition and prosecution, and issuing sanctions against the perpetrators. In this case, at a minimum, the Trump administration should launch a Justice Department investigation into the murder, demand that the Israeli government allow access to interview the perpetrators and witnesses, prosecute the murderers if Israeli fails to do so, and impose U.S. sanctions on them.
“Israel’s legal system has proven completely incapable of holding its own citizens accountable for killing Palestinians, including American citizens,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director.
While the U.S. government has actively investigated and sanctioned the murder of Israelis by Palestinians, it has failed to protect Americans murdered by Israelis. Following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in which 40 U.S. citizens were killed, the Justice Department launched a major investigation and filed criminal charges against Hamas officials for murder and terrorism. In contrast, the U.S. government never announced the findings of the investigation it claims the Department of Justice launched in 2022 into the May 11, 2022 murder of American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh. The Department of Justice didn’t even attempt to investigate the murder of American-Turkish activist Aysenur Eygi, whom Israeli forces fatally shot in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on September 6, 2024.
Instead, the U.S. government has continued to reward Israel with military and political support, and ensure impunity for Israeli criminals in international fora, including the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Trump administration has also imposed sanctions on the ICC’s prosecutor and several judges, as well as U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, for their efforts to hold Israeli officials accountable for their crimes.
On January 20, 2025, his first day in office, President Trump canceled the sanctions program President Biden had implemented to punish violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
“The killing of U.S. citizen Saif al-Din Musalat is a direct consequence of President Trump cancelling sanctions against violent Israeli settlers on his first day in office,” said Jarrar. “When you remove accountability measures against extremist settlers, you’re essentially giving them a green light to escalate their violence against Palestinians, including American citizens.”
Americans Murdered by Israeli Forces or State-Backed Settler Paramilitary Forces since 2022
- Saif al-Din Musalat, July 11, 2025
- Amer Rabee, a 14-year-old Palestinian-American child from New Jersey, was fatally shot by Israelis in the town of Turmus Ayya, north of the city of Ramallah, on April 6, 2025.
- Mohammad Alkhdour, a 17 year-old Palestinian boy from Florida, wasshot in the head on Feb. 10, 2024 by Israeli forces in Biddu, West Bank, while driving in a car.
- Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a 17-year-old Palestinian-American boy from Louisiana, was shot by Israeli forces near Ramallah on January, 19, 2024.
- Ayşenur Eygi, a Turkish-American activist, was shot by IDF forces on September 6, 2024 while attending a protest in Beita, West Bank.
- Shireen Abu-Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist, was killed on May 11, 2022, by Alon Scoglia of the Duvdevan Unit of the Israel Defense Forces in an apparent targeted assassination.
- Omar Assad, 78, was killed on January 12, 2022 in Jiljilya, West Bank, by the notorious Netzah Yehuda Brigade, which Secretary Blinken refused to sanction under the U.S. Leahy Laws.