{"id":42586,"date":"2025-07-13T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=42586"},"modified":"2025-07-13T13:34:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T20:34:48","slug":"42586","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/07\/13\/42586\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Settlers Beat American to Death in Illegally Occupied West Bank: Family, Health Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Sayfollah<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sayfollah Musallat, a 23-year-old U.S.-Palestinian citizen, “died after being severely beaten all over his body” by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, according to the Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo: Courtesy of family)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration,” said one U.S. group.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

JESSICA CORBETT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jul 11, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health and cousins of Sayfollah Musallat\u2014also known as Saif al-Din Kamel Abdul Karim Musallat\u2014said Friday that Israeli settlers beat the dual U.S.-Palestinian citizen to death while he was visiting family in the illegally occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson for the ministry, Annas Abu El Ezz, told<\/a> Agence France-Press<\/em> that 23-year-old Musallat “died after being severely beaten all over his body by settlers in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, this afternoon.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abdul Samad Abdul Aziz, from the nearby village of Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya, said that “the young man was injured and remained so for four hours. The [Israeli] army prevented us from reaching him and did not allow us to take him away.”

“When we finally managed to reach him, he was taking his last breath,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Times of\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>reported<\/a>\u00a0that the “ministry later said a second man, 23-year-old Mohammad Shalabi, was fatally shot by settlers,” and “there have been no arrests yet.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/QudsNen\/status\/1943751970017468559?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1943751970017468559%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fsettler-violence-west-bank<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to<\/a> the Tel Aviv-based newspaper Haaretz<\/em>, “The Israeli army said it was ‘aware of reports’ of the incident and that it was ‘being looked into by the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeteo<\/em>‘s Prem Thakker spoke with<\/a> two of Musallat’s cousins, Fatmah Muhammad and another granted anonymity due to safety concerns. They said that he grew up in Port Charlotte, Florida, and arrived in June to visit family in the Palestinian town of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Thakker detailed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Muhammad described Musallat as “one of those kids that everyone loves” with a “beautiful heart,” a “sweet, gentle kid, very genuine,” everyone attests as funny and bright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Florida, he helped run a family ice cream shop, a place where his personality shone through, his family members said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Muhammad and the other family source said that the entire Palestinian town where the family is from is devastated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There’s no justice there. You can’t call the police. You can’t call the Israeli government. The murderers just get to walk away,” Muhammad said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, the Israel Defense Forces have killed<\/a> over 57,800 Palestinians in the Gaza<\/a> Strip\u2014which has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). During that time, IDF soldiers and Israeli settlers’ sometimes deadly violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has also surged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, despite the ICJ’s July 2024 finding<\/a> that Israel’s occupation of Palestine<\/a> is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible, and Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to unlawful annexation, there are growing<\/a> calls in Israel’s government to formally annex the West Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musallat’s death came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2014a fugitive from the International Criminal Court\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0of continuing the mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza to stay in power\u2014returned to Israel after meeting with U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0and congressional leaders in Washington, D.C. this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/x.com\/willmenaker\/status\/1943794773401514472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1943794773401514472%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fsettler-violence-west-bank<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, said<\/a> in a Friday statement that “we strongly condemn these racist Israeli settlers, backed and enabled by the Netanyahu government, for beating an American citizen to death in the occupied West Bank.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This murder is only the latest killing of an American citizen by illegal Israeli settlers or soldiers,” he noted. “Every other murder of an American citizen has gone unpunished by the American government, which is why the Israeli government keeps wantonly killing American Palestinians and, of course, other Palestinians. If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly an Israel First administration.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Thakker: “Musallat is at least the seventh American killed in the West Bank, Gaza, or Lebanon since October 7, 2023, including six killed by Israeli forces. Earlier this week,\u00a0Zeteo<\/em>\u00a0asked several Republican senators<\/a>\u00a0if they knew how many Americans had been killed by Israel in the last 21 months. None of them could answer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JESSICA CORBETT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sayfollah Musallat, a 23-year-old U.S.-Palestinian citizen, “died after being severely beaten all over his body” by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, according to the Ministry of Health. \u00a0(Photo: Courtesy of family) “If President Trump will not even put America first when Israel murders American citizens, then this is truly… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42588,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42586\/revisions\/42588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}