Monday 14 / July / 2025
Ramallah: A school courtyard in al-Mazra'a al-Sharqiya, a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has been transformed into a large mourning tent after two young men were killed in what their families describe as the latest attack by Israeli settlers.
Twenty-year-old Sayfollah Musallet, a US citizen from Florida, was beaten to death and Mohammed al-Shalabi, 23, was shot during Friday's attack, their families said. Residents say the settlers blocked efforts to help the dying youths.
Razek Hassan al-Shalabi, Mohammad's father, sat among the town's inhabitants and relatives who came to mourn the young men at the school. "In the morning he told me he wanted to get married," he told DW. "He talked about starting a family, and now we bury him."
Across the street, at the Musallet home, women gathered to support the family in their grief. Saif, as Sayfollah was nicknamed, had arrived in June from his hometown, Tampa, to spend the summer with relatives in the town, which is roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Ramallah.
"He was like a little brother," Diana Halum, a cousin who is acting as the family's spokesperson, told DW. "We travelled together, back and forth from the States to Palestine. He came here to visit his cousins, his friends."
"Not in a million years did we think something so tragic would happen," Halum said. "And it's just, it's the way they killed him, too. I mean, he was lynched by aggressive, illegal Israeli settlers, and left there for hours."
On Friday, the family released a statement saying medics had tried to reach Musallet for three hours before his brother managed to carry him to an ambulance. He died before they could make it to the hospital. "This is an unimaginable nightmare and injustice that no family should ever have to face," the family said. "We demand the US State Department lead an immediate investigation and hold the Israeli settlers who killed Saif accountable for their crimes."
The State Department says it is aware of reports of a death of a US citizen in the West Bank. Officials declined to comment further "out of respect for the privacy of the family" but said the department was ready "to provide consular services."
'A daily reality' in the West Bank
The youths had gathered with others following Friday's noon prayers to show their presence in the fields where, just weeks ago, settlers attacked residents who had organized a march to protest settler violence and attempts to seize the land.
In an initial statement following Friday's attack, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed that "terrorists hurled rocks at Israeli civilians," leading to a "violent confrontation" that included "the vandalism of Palestinian property, arson, physical clashes and rock hurling." The IDF acknowledged reports that at least one Palestinian had been killed and a number injured and claimed that the incident would be "looked into." The families say the youths' bodies showed signs of torture.
In response to an inquiry from DW, the IDF referred to its earlier statement and added that "following the incident, a joint investigation was launched by the Israel Police and the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division."
It was just the latest violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Since the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, in southern Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, such attacks have become "a daily reality," according to the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs. Between January 2024 and May 2025, OCHA has documented over 2,070 settler attacks, resulting in casualties and property damage in the West Bank.
Settlers regularly raid villages or install illegal outposts to harass and threaten Palestinians, often in the presence of Israeli soldiers or police who do not interfere. Israeli rights groups and Palestinians report that settlers have been recruited as reservists.
West Bank | Al-Mazra’a a-Sharqiya
Shock, grief, resignation
For several hours following the attack, Razek Hassan al-Shalabi said, he had believed that his son Mohammed was in IDF custody. When he discovered that evening that the information was incorrect, local residents searched for Mohammed. According to the family and the Palestinian Health Ministry, they found him severely beaten and shot in the back.
Friends of the two young men gathered at the school on Saturday, looking shocked. Iyad, who declined to give his surname, said that his cousin Saif and Mohammed were in the same friendship group and used to hang out together. "They were always the ones that would cheer everyone up, they never brought you down, if you needed them, they were always there," Iyad told DW.
A young Palestinian American himself, Iyad said people in the occupied West Bank also believed that Israeli settlers carried out their attacks with a sense of impunity. He said the United States rarely intervened on the behalf of people who were the victims of such attacks or their families.
"Sadly this only got attention because Saif has American citizenship. This isn't the first time this happened, multiple US citizens have been killed either by Israeli citizens or Israeli soldiers and I think that there should definitely be a change in it and they [the US administration] should do something about it because honestly ... I am lost for words."
Iyad, who is from California, was also visiting for the summer. "It is sad people have to be cautious in their own land, it is sad that every time Palestinians leave their home they are at risk," he said.
Three other young Palestinian Americans have been killed in the occupied West Bank since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023. Their cases, which involved Israeli soldiers and settlers, remain unresolved. "It makes you feel hopeless, it makes you sad. Here in the village, we deal with this on a daily basis," Hafeth Abdel Jabbar told DW about the latest killings. His 17-year-old son, Tawfiq, a US citizen from Louisiana, was shot and killed in 2024 near the town and until now, no one was charged for the crime.
"The crazy thing is that our government is supporting such a regime with racists and extremists that are supporting these settlers, and it's okay to do that to us, they treat us like we're not human beings. That's what flips your mind," Abdel Jabbar said.
While the previous US administration issued sanctions against some radical settlers, these were rescinded by President Donald Trump shortly after taking office.
Razek Hassan al-Shalabi said he was not confident that his many questions surrounding Mohammed's death would ever be answered by the Israeli authorities. He was trying to keep himself together for the young men's joint funeral on Sunday. "We weren't just father and son," he said. "We were friends." Overwhelmed by grief, he was unable to finish his thought.
