The family of a Palestinian American, beaten until death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank occupied according to the Palestinian authority, asked the State Department to carry out an investigation this Saturday, July 12.
Saif Al-Din Musalat, 20, lived in Florida, where he was born, said his family in a statement transmitted by his representative, Diana Halum. He had gone to the West Bank in early June “to spend time with his loved ones.”
“It is an unimaginable nightmare, an injustice that no family should have to live,” the family added.
“We demand that the United States Department immediately carry out an investigation and that the Israeli settlers who killed Saif be responsible for their crimes,” the text said.
“Violently beaten”
The Ministry of Health of the Palestinian authority announced Friday that Saif al-Din Musalat was dead “after being violently beaten, throughout the body, by the settlers” in the Sinjil village, north of Ramallah.
He was “brutally beaten until death (…) while protected his family’s land against the settlers trying to steal them,” said his family.
The Israeli army said Friday night that a “violent confrontation” exploded after two Israeli civilians were “slightly injured” by stones.
He mentioned “acts of vandalism against Palestinian goods, voluntary fires, physical clashes and stones.”
Another demolished Palestinian
The Palestinian authorities announced at night that a second 23-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Rizq Hussein al-Shalabi, had died during these same clashes “of a ball injury in the chest.”
Violence has shot in the West Bank, a territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, caused by the attack on the Palestinian Islamist movement of Hamas in the Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.
At least 955 Palestinians, including many combatants, but also many civilians, were killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to an AFP count of the data of the Palestinian authority.
At the same time, at least 36 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, were killed in Palestinian attacks or in Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli data.
Source: BFM TV
