{"id":182014,"date":"2025-10-06T17:17:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T17:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/182014\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T17:17:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T17:17:06","slug":"a-club-nobody-wanted-to-be-a-part-of-families-of-americans-killed-by-israel-face-uphill-climb-to-justice-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/182014\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A club nobody wanted to be a part of\u2019: Families of Americans killed by Israel face uphill climb to justice | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within hours after they were told that Ay\u015fenur Ezgi Eygi<\/a> had been killed by an Israeli sniper while at a protest in the West Bank last year, her family was on a phone call with the parents of Rachel Corrie<\/a>, a 23-year-old activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n

The families were introduced by a mutual contact in Washington state, where both Corrie and 26-year-old Eygi had lived. There were other parallels in their stories: Corrie was protesting against the demolition of a Palestinian family\u2019s home in Rafah when a soldier drove over her; Eygi was at a protest against settlement expansion near Nablus. Both had traveled to the region with the International Solidarity Movement, a group that for years has brought foreign activists to stand with Palestinians against Israel\u2019s occupation. An Israeli military investigation concluded<\/a> that it was \u201chighly likely\u201d Eygi was hit \u201cindirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her\u201d; the Israeli military said that Corrie\u2019s death was an accident and that she was responsible for it.<\/p>\n

Cindy and Craig Corrie pulled over at a highway rest stop when they got the call. \u201cThere\u2019s really not much you can tell somebody,\u201d Cindy told the Guardian in an interview recalling her first conversation with Eygi\u2019s parents. \u201cI told them all I was trying to do was hug them through the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top: Rachel Corrie, then 23, stands between an Israeli bulldozer and a Palestinian physician\u2019s house in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza strip in 2003.<\/p>\n

Bottom: Ay\u015fenur Ezgi Eygi after her commencement ceremony at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, in June 2024.<\/p>\n

Photograph: International Solidarity Movement\/Getty Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Since Rachel Corrie\u2019s killing in 2003, about a dozen US citizens are known to have died at the hands of Israeli soldiers or settlers, or while in Israeli custody. At least six have been killed in the West Bank alone since Hamas\u2019s 7 October 2023 attacks and Israel\u2019s ensuing war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

More than 40 US citizens were killed by Hamas in Israel on 7 October 2023, or after being taken hostage into Gaza. In those cases, the US justice department launched investigations and brought terrorism charges against the Hamas leaders it determined to be responsible, with attorney general Merrick Garland pledging<\/a> that the US government would investigate \u201ceach and every one of Hamas\u2019 brutal murders of Americans\u201d.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to killings by Israeli forces, the US government has consistently deferred to the Israeli military\u2019s own investigations, which Israeli rights groups have for years condemned as a \u201cwhitewash<\/a>\u201d . Rights groups have found<\/a> that Israeli forces are almost never held accountable by the Israeli legal system when they harm Palestinians.<\/p>\n

To date, nobody has been charged or held accountable for any of the deaths of US citizens at Israeli hands. A spokesperson for the state department said in a statement to the Guardian that the department offers consular assistance to the families of citizens killed overseas; it declined to comment on individual cases citing \u201cprivacy and other considerations\u201d. The spokesperson referred questions about the investigation of US citizens\u2019 killings to the justice department. A spokesperson for the justice department declined to respond to a detailed list of questions from the Guardian, citing the government shutdown.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Corries joined a group united by grief and purpose for a series of meetings in Washington DC, to demand the US government investigate their loved ones\u2019 killings. Eygi\u2019s sister, \u00d6zden Bennett, and her husband, Hamid Ali, were there. So were the fathers of Tawfic Abdel Jabbar<\/a>, a 17-year-old from Louisiana who was shot at least 10 times while driving his car in the West Bank in 2024, and of Sayfollah Musallet<\/a>, a 20-year-old from Florida who witnesses say was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in July. (Israel claims Jabbar was suspected of stone throwing, an account contradicted by an investigation by the Israeli rights group B\u2019Tselem. After Musallet\u2019s killing, Israeli police arrested three settlers, but later released them. Israeli police did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the IDF said that an investigation of the incident is ongoing.)<\/p>\n

Kamel Musallet, Sayfollah\u2019s father, told legislators that his son, an ice-cream shop owner from Tampa who had traveled to the West Bank to visit family, often boasted to his friends about his \u201cblue\u201d passport. \u201cHe used to say, don\u2019t worry, we are Americans,\u201d said Musallet. \u201cHe felt safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tawfic Abdel Jabbar with his father, Hafeth Jabbar. Photograph: Obtained by the Guardian<\/p>\n

But it turns out American citizenship offers little protection. Musallet was killed in al-Mazra\u2019a ash-Sharqiya, a relatively wealthy village north of Ramallah home to a population of Palestinian Americans so large some have taken to call it the \u201cMiami<\/a> of the West Bank\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the first people to reach his body was Hafeth Jabbar, the father of Tawfic. \u201cThis is what we are dealing with every day,\u201d Jabbar told representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts in a meeting. On his phone, he showed her videos of settlers attacking his land, and a photo of one of the men who he believes shot his son. \u201cWe\u2019re in a climate that does not see the humanity of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a private dinner at a Balkan restaurant before three days of meetings with legislators, the families bonded over their shared grief and fears their loved ones\u2019 deaths would go unpunished \u2013 and that the impunity would lead to more killings. Ali, Eygi\u2019s husband, recalled with a smile that when he had first spoken to the Corries, Craig had called the families an exclusive \u201cclub nobody wanted to be a part of\u201d.<\/p>\n

The meetings \u2013 with more than a dozen congressmen and senators \u2013 along with a press conference<\/a> on Capitol Hill attended by several legislators, underscored a gradual shift in Congress on Israel over the last two years: a measured reflection of a more tectonic shift on Israel in American society more broadly. In an op-ed published just minutes before he sat down with the families, Bernie Sanders from Vermont became the first US senator<\/a> to accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. And days after meeting with them, senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, joined by several colleagues, introduced a resolution<\/a> calling on the US government to recognize a Palestinian state \u2013 another first.<\/p>\n

While Gaza has been more prominent in headlines, Israeli military and settler violence in the West Bank has also spiked since 7 October \u2013 with more Palestinians killed in the last two years than at any point since the second intifada<\/a> in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Hamas\u2019 horrific attack on October 7th, there has been a massive increase in settlers harassing Palestinians in the West Bank: blocking access to water, vineyards, and olive orchards, and threatening and assaulting Palestinian villagers as they go about daily tasks,\u201d Merkley said in a statement to the Guardian after a meeting with the families and senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, with whom he recently traveled to the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Kamel Musallet shows Ayanna Pressley videos of settler attacks on his land. Photograph: Ayla Kadah for the Center for Constitutional Rights<\/p>\n

\u201cThis rising violence is unacceptable, and so too is the lack of justice for these families from the Netanyahu government,\u201d Merkley added. \u201cAs Israel\u2019s close ally, the US government must do more to ensure accountability for those impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the changes in Congress have been subtle, and US government support for Israel remains largely unchanged, the shift in public opinion has been more significant. More than half of US adults hold unfavourable opinions of Israel, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey<\/a>, compared with 42% before the war started.<\/p>\n

\u2018Here we are again\u2019<\/p>\n

The US justice department can exert jurisdiction over the killings of US citizens abroad but normally does so<\/a> with the consent and assistance of authorities of the relevant country. It\u2019s rare for US civilians abroad to be killed by a state\u2019s own security forces. Israel has become an exception.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Americans are killed abroad, it\u2019s a standard procedure for our US government to open an investigation,\u201d representative Rashida Tlaib said at the families\u2019 press conference. \u201cBut when murderers wear Israeli uniforms, there\u2019s complete silence. Not only that, they ask the actual government that committed the crime to do the investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rashida Tlaib speaks as families of Americans killed by Israeli forces and settlers gather outside the Capitol in Washington DC on 16 September. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Corries spent years after Rachel\u2019s killing trying to get the US government to open an independent investigation, lobbying legislators on countless trips to the capital in a futile crusade I documented<\/a> a few years ago. After losing a years-long legal battle<\/a> against the Israeli government, and another<\/a> in the US against bulldozer manufacturer Caterpillar, the family eventually gave up. They resumed their advocacy after the 2022 killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh<\/a>, who was shot in the head while reporting in the West Bank city of Jenin. The IDF has apologized for the killing.<\/p>\n

Abu Akleh\u2019s death is the only killing of a US citizen by Israeli forces over which the FBI is understood to have launched a formal investigation<\/a>. (Although the FBI has interviewed witnesses, sources say, the US justice department never publicly confirmed the existence of the investigation, which appears to have stalled.)<\/p>\n

Mohammed Ibrahim. Photograph: Obtained by the Guardian<\/p>\n

In their meetings with legislators, the families repeatedly pointed to the US government\u2019s response to the killing of Americans in the 7 October attacks, lamenting the double standard and warning that continued impunity all but ensured more killings to come. They also coalesced around a demand that US legislators apply more pressure on Israel to release Mohammed Ibrahim<\/a>, a 16-year-old American Palestinian boy \u2013 and Sayfollah Musallet\u2019s cousin \u2013 who has been held in Israeli military prison for more than seven months over allegations of stone throwing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there had been any accountability in Rachel\u2019s case some of these families wouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d Cindy Corrie said in a meeting with senator Peter Welch of Vermont. \u201cAnd yet, here we are again,\u201d her husband added.<\/p>\n

A pin bearing the face of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. Photograph: Alice Speri\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Over tea at a congressional cafeteria, Cindy Corrie said she has tried to be \u201chonest\u201d about the path ahead when speaking to the Eygis. If history is any indication, their calls for justice may lead to nothing.<\/p>\n

But she also recognized a perceptible shift, on the hill and off. \u201cThe climate in 2003 around this issue was very different,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In their early meetings in Congress, the Corries recalled, they would often show up to congressional offices with maps showing where Gaza was. Few legislators were willing to publicly criticize Israel at the time, and some were dismissive of the Corries and even hostile.<\/p>\n

Now things are different: within days of Eygi\u2019s killing, more than 100<\/a> legislators called on the Biden administration to launch an independent investigation. In Washington, Eygi\u2019s husband was stopped at a Mexican restaurant by a woman wearing a keffiyeh who recognized the activist on a pin he was wearing. A security guard at one of the congressional buildings where the family met with legislators also recognized Eygi on a pin her sister was wearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry about your loss. I hope that they listen to you,\u201d he told her. She handed him a pin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Within hours after they were told that Ay\u015fenur Ezgi Eygi had been killed by an Israeli sniper while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-182014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}