By Ali Zeraatpisheh

Since January 2022, at least nine American citizens have been killed by Israeli settlers or Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank, Palestine.

Among them were a journalist, two 17-year-old boys, a 14-year-old child, a 20-year-old man, a father of five, and other civilians.

In none of the nine cases has meaningful accountability been established, according to a recent Senate resolution introduced by Senator Chris Van Hollen.

The first was Omar Assad, a 70-year-old Palestinian American who had run a grocery store in Milwaukee, the most populous city in the US state of Wisconsin, for decades.

In January 2022, Israeli soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint in his village, dragged him from his car, bound his hands behind his back, gagged and blindfolded him, and left him on the ground.

He died of a stress-induced heart attack. No one has been held accountable.

Four months later, Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist who had lived in New Jersey as a child, was shot in the head while reporting near the Jenin refugee camp.

She was wearing a clearly marked press vest. A subsequent US review concluded that Israeli military fire was responsible for her cold-blooded murder.

In January 2024, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a 17-year-old American born and raised in Louisiana, was shot in the head while driving east of Ramallah.

Weeks later, Mohammad Khdour, another 17-year-old American, was shot twice in the head while driving near Biddu. Reports attributed the killings to Israeli settlers and forces.

In September 2024, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who had grown up in Seattle, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier from approximately 200 meters away.

In April 2025, Amer Rabee, just 14 years old, was shot 11 times by Israeli occupation forces near Turmus Ayya.

In July 2025, Saifullah Kamel Musallet, a 20-year-old American born in Florida who was visiting his family, was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in Sinjil.

Witnesses reported that settlers and Israeli occupation forces prevented an ambulance from reaching him for more than two hours.

The following month, Khamis Ayyad, a 40-year-old Chicago resident and father of five, died from smoke inhalation after settlers set fire to homes and cars in his village.

In February 2026, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, a 19-year-old American born in Philadelphia, was shot and killed during a settler attack on Palestinian farmers near Ramallah.

How did Trump’s administration respond to the killings?

For the families of the nine Americans, Washington’s response has amounted to little more than lame statements and half-hearted condolences, with no meaningful accountability.

In March 2026, 30 senators wrote to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, warning that Americans were being killed in the occupied West Bank “without justice or accountability.” They called on the administration to launch independent investigations into the killings.

They also asked a question that underscored their frustration: How many more Americans had to die before Washington took “serious, credible steps” to secure accountability?

The US State Department’s response fell far short of the gravity of the killings. In a letter to the senators, it offered a familiar assurance: “The United States calls for accountability in all cases where US citizens are harmed abroad.”

Yet by September 2026, none of the nine cases had resulted in meaningful accountability. Senator Chris Van Hollen dismissed the repeated assurances as “empty promises,” noting that the families had waited months and, in some cases, years for answers.

The Assad family had already experienced the consequences of those unfulfilled promises firsthand. After Israeli soldiers detained and mistreated Omar Assad in January 2022, the US State Department demanded a “thorough criminal investigation and full accountability.”

Israel later said it had “disciplined” commanders, but no criminal charges were filed.

In 2024, Washington also allowed the Israeli military unit involved in Assad’s killing to continue receiving US assistance after determining that its violations had been “effectively remediated.”

For Assad’s nephew, Assad Assad, the decision was devastating. He called it an act of “hypocrisy” and made a simple plea: “We need to find justice for my uncle.”

Even the words of US ambassador Mike Huckabee have failed to translate into accountability. After Sayfollah Musallet was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in July 2025, Huckabee described the killing as a “criminal and terrorist act” and declared, “There must be accountability.”

But condemnation alone has not brought justice. The Israeli regime authorities have yet to be held meaningfully accountable for these killings, while the families continue to wait for answers.

Why did the Senate refuse to demand answers?

On September 29, 2026, the US Senate had an opportunity to demand answers about nine Americans killed by settlers or occupation forces in the occupied West Bank. It refused.

Senators voted 47-51 to block a resolution introduced by Senator Chris Van Hollen that would have required the US State Department to report to Congress on the killings and on human-rights violations in the territory. The motion to discharge the resolution was rejected.

The measure, S. Res. 852, did not seek to cut military aid to Israel. Instead, it invoked Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act and would have required the US State Department, within 30 days, to provide information on investigations into the killings of American citizens.

It also called for an assessment of the broader human-rights situation in the occupied West Bank, including the abduction of Palestinian children.

The vote fell almost entirely along party lines. Forty-six Democrats and Republican Senator Rand Paul voted in favor. Forty-eight Republicans and Democratic Senator John Fetterman voted against. Two senators did not vote.

For Van Hollen, the significance of the outcome was unmistakable.

“Nine American citizens have been killed in recent years, and they have received no justice and no accountability,” he said after the vote. “Their families, and the American people, deserve answers on their deaths. But today Republicans denied them that.”

With the resolution blocked, the US State Department faced no new reporting requirement under the measure. Congress would not receive the requested accounting of what happened to the nine Americans, whether Israeli authorities had properly investigated their deaths, or whether US assistance was reaching forces or institutions implicated in human-rights abuses.

Van Hollen put the question directly to his colleagues on the Senate floor: “If the killing of nine Americans does not justify a report from our own State Department, I would ask my colleagues: what would?”

Why has Israel faced no accountability?

Israel’s protection in Washington rests on more than diplomatic ties. It is reinforced by campaign spending, lobbying, political donations and direct access to members of US Congress.

At the center of this network is the notorious American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its extensive lobbying operation.

Its super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), had spent $53.6 million on congressional races by August 21, 2026. AIPAC itself had contributed $30 million to UDP. By June, UDP had raised approximately $104 million for the 2026 election cycle, surpassing the $87.1 million it raised throughout the 2024 cycle.

That money has been deployed to influence which candidates prevail in congressional races.

In Michigan, UDP spent $30.1 million seeking to prevent progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed from winning the Democratic Senate primary.

In New Jersey, it spent more than $2 million opposing former Representative Tomasz Malinowski, a Democrat who had previously received AIPAC’s endorsement.

In California, UDP invested nearly $2.5 million in an August 2026 House race to support Melissa Hernandez against progressive Democrat Aisha Wahab.

AIPAC’s influence extends beyond election spending to foreign travel for lawmakers. Since October 7, 2023, as Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza has devastated the territory, its affiliate, the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), has spent more than $4.2 million funding trips to occupied Palestine for at least 78 members of Congress and congressional staff from both parties.

The trips included meetings with Israeli regime officials, among them the ill-famed premier Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as visits to the occupied West Bank.

This congressional travel network operates through organized delegations. A 2025 AIEF delegation, for example, included Republican lawmakers Jim Jordan, Warren Davidson, Michelle Fischbach, Mike Flood, Ronny Jackson, Morgan Luttrell, Mary Miller, Andy Ogles, Gary Palmer, María Elvira Salazar and Keith Self.

The stated purpose was to brief lawmakers on issues affecting US-Israel relations, including foreign policy and US appropriations.

This political influence operates alongside substantial US support for Israel. Yet when the Senate was asked to examine the killings of nine American citizens in the occupied West Bank, the proposal did not call for sanctions against Israel or an end to military assistance.

S. Res. 852 would simply have required the US State Department to provide Congress with information about the killings, the investigations into those deaths and the broader human-rights situation in the West Bank.

The contrast is stark. AIPAC’s political network can channel tens of millions of dollars into congressional elections, finance overseas trips for lawmakers and mobilize substantial resources against candidates who challenge its preferred policies.

Yet nine American citizens can be killed in territory under Israeli occupation, their families can wait months or years for answers, and the Senate can still refuse to require the US government to account for what happened.

What do Americans’ deaths reveal about life in the Occupied West Bank?

The deliberate killings of nine Americans cannot be separated from the broader reality Palestinians have endured across the occupied West Bank for decades.

Since October 7, 2023, the UN had documented 1,109 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank, including 243 children. That toll included 63 Palestinians killed in the first six months of 2026 alone.

Between September 2 and 8, Israeli regime forces killed six Palestinians, including two children, while another 31 were injured.

Settler violence has become a daily and menacing threat. By September 14, 2026, the UN had documented more than 1,600 settler attacks since the beginning of the year, affecting 275 Palestinian communities, an average of 6.7 attacks every day.

These attacks have taken many forms: shootings, beatings, arson, stone-throwing, the destruction of homes and vehicles, assaults on livestock, and the destruction of water supplies and agricultural infrastructure.

The consequences extend beyond immediate injuries and killings. Rampant settler violence is also driving Palestinians from their own land.

Between January 2023 and July 13, 2026, 122 Palestinian communities experienced full or partial displacement, including 47 that were completely emptied. More than 6,200 Palestinians, including over 3,000 children, were displaced during that period. More than 2,300 were displaced in 2026 alone.

Israeli military raids compound this insecurity. The search-and-arrest operations routinely bring Israeli armed forces into Palestinian towns and refugee camps, leaving arrests, injuries, road closures and temporary displacement in their wake.

In September, Israeli regime forces raided a hospital in Ramallah and abducted an injured Palestinian. In Biddu, they detained at least 67 Palestinian men, took over homes and prepared measurements for a punitive demolition. Further raids in Nablus, Qalqiliya and Ramallah resulted in additional detentions and injuries.

Beneath this violence lies a struggle over land that has continued for decades.

A UN Commission of Inquiry reported that Israeli regime authorities declared 2,425.8 hectares of Palestinian land to be so-called “state land” in 2024, the largest annual declaration of its kind since 1998.

A separate UN report found that 2,545.9 hectares had been appropriated through state-land declarations during its reporting period, accounting for approximately half of all land declared the so-called “state land” since the Oslo Accords.

The report also found that 99.76 percent of the land classified by 2018 had been allocated to Israeli settlements.

The process continued in 2026 through settlement expansion, land registration and demolitions. In September, Israeli authorities demolished or sealed dozens of Palestinian-owned structures in a single week, displacing families and destroying homes, livelihoods and agricultural property.

This is the landscape in which the nine Americans were killed. Their American passports did not place them beyond the reach of this reality. They were killed within it.