February 15, 2024 Israel-Hamas war
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered his “deepest condolences” Thursday on two American teenagers “who reportedly were killed” in the West Bank and said that there must be an investigation into their deaths.
CNN previously reported that two 17-year-old Palestinian Americans had been reportedly killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces in less than a month.
We’ve made clear that with regard to the incidents you’ve alluded to, there needs to be an investigation. We need to get the facts. And if appropriate, there needs to be accountability,” Blinken said at a press conference in Albania in response to a question from CNN’s Alex Marquardt.
In addition, an American woman was taken from her home in the West Bank and detained more than a week ago by Israeli forces. Her family alleges that she was beaten and denied medication in custody. A spokesperson for the Israel Prison Service told CNN that she was “being held in accordance with the law” and had been “given medical treatment for medical problems that arose even before her arrest.”
Two other Americans were detained by Israeli forces during a raid of a home in Gaza last week, according to a family member in the US.
“With regard to detainees, there is a limit to what I can say because of the privacy laws and the requirements that flow from that,” Blinken said.
“I can just say in general, without reference to specific cases, we insist that people be treated fairly, that they be treated with due process, and that they be treated humanely,” he said. “That’s something that, regardless of where an American citizen might be detained, we insist on. And we’ll continue to insist on.”
Some background: The US State Department said Tuesday that an American died in the West Bank on Saturday, but did not provide a name or the circumstances of their death. The group “Defense for Children – Palestine” said the American was 17-year-old Mohammad Ahmed Mohammad Khdour. The organization said he was shot in the head by Israeli forces on Saturday while traveling by car in the town of Biddu in the West Bank.
Last month, another American, 17-year-old Tawfic Abdel Jabbar was fatally shot in the head and the chest, his father told CNN. The IDF and Israeli police told CNN at the time it received a report that an off-duty police officer and an Israeli civilian fired toward a “Palestinian individual suspected of hurling rocks in the area of Al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya.”
His father, Hafiz Abdel Jabbar, pushed back on Israeli claims in an interview with CNN, saying there was no way his son could have thrown rocks at them from where he was. Abdel Jabbar added that he had video evidence of the incident, which he has sent to the United States Consulate and some senators, saying that finding answers about his son’s death has not been easy so far.
