DOJ silent as families of Americans killed in West Bank, Gaza demand it investigate

Less than two months after Hamas’ assault on southern Israel last year killed around 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was asked what the Justice Department was doing in response.

“We always investigate the deaths of Americans,” Garland told reporters in November 2023. “We are actively investigating the deaths of the Americans using all the tools available to us.”

For the Americans killed by Hamas, Garland’s Justice Department followed through. In September, the attorney general announced charges against six leaders of Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. Garland also condemned Hamas’ recent killing of a half dozen hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

“We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of the brutal murders of Americans, as acts of terrorism,” Garland said.

Over the past year, four Americans also have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but, their families say, by Israelis. All four families of those slain Americans tell NPR they have heard nothing from the Justice Department; they say there’s no indication the department is investigating the deaths of their loved ones.

“It’s very frustrating. It’s very disheartening,” said John Flickinger, whose son Jacob was killed in Gaza. “You would think as a U.S. citizen, the United States would take more of an interest in his killing.”

The Justice Department declined to comment for this story. Israel says it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians.

But rights groups in Israel says the Israeli government has shown a lack of transparency and will to investigate its own soldiers and civilians accused of violence in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

World Central Kitchen attack

Jacob Flickinger was a humanitarian aid worker for World Central Kitchen. The dual U.S.-Canadian citizen was killed along with six colleagues in an Israeli airstrike on their aid convoy in April.

An initial investigation by Israel’s military determined that the strike was a “grave mistake” that was the result of “a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures.” In response, the military said it dismissed two officers from their positions, and reprimanded two others.

For John Flickinger, that initial investigation fell short.

“We don’t have all the facts. There are a lot of unanswered questions. The IDF did their own investigation, but by many accounts it’s not really credible given the fact that it’s not truly independent,” Flickinger said. “I want to know what happened to my son and the other aid workers who were killed under, I would say, suspicious circumstances.”

It’s suspicious in part, he said, because Israel has not released the audio of the officers involved in the strike, “which would tell the state of mind of the people responsible.”

Flickinger said Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. has promised to meet with him, but so far has refused to allow Flickinger’s attorneys to attend. The meeting still hasn’t happened.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy confirmed the ambassador’s office has been in touch with Flickinger and said it takes the issue seriously.

“In accordance with the protocols and procedures of the government of Israel and the IDF, the Embassy is not authorized to represent on its own the State of Israel and the IDF in a legal setting,” the spokesperson said. “However, the Ambassador has continued to extend his invitation for a meeting with Mr. Flickinger and his family.”

Flickinger’s frustration, disappointment and desire for answers holds true for the families of the other three Americans killed this year.

West Bank shooting

Hafeth Abdel Jabbar’s 17-year-old son, Tawfic, was shot and killed in the West Bank in January. His son was out with a friend near their village “when a settler and a soldier decided to come up the hill and start shooting on my son while he was driving,” Abdel Jabbar said. “A bullet struck him in the head.”

His son was born in Louisiana and spent most of his life there until the family moved to the West Bank last year—nine months before Tawfic was killed.

Abdel Jabbar was in the village when the shooting happened. He said he heard the gunshots, and then got a phone call telling him his son’s truck had flipped over. He rushed to the scene.

“When we reached there we saw them,” he said. “There was a settler with a gun, and there was a soldier and an off-duty police officer. All three of them were standing there.”

Abdel Jabbar said they pointed their guns at him and threatened to shoot him if he approached the car.

“I didn’t listen,” he said. “I started taking my son out of the car and got him into the ambulance and left.”

In the days following the shooting, officials from the U.S. Embassy met with the Abdel Jabbar family and told them the Israelis are investigating. But nine months later, Abdel Jabbar said he’s been told that the investigation is still ongoing and no one has been prosecuted.

“What hurts you is just because he’s a Palestinian-American, there’s little to be done from my country, from the United States,” Abdel Jabbar said by phone from Louisiana.

In Louisiana, his son went to school and had Jewish friends, Abdel Jabbar said.

“They’re friends here and they’re treated the same here,” he said. “But the minute they get on the plane and travel to Palestine, they’re treated different because this guy is Jewish and this guy is Palestinian.”

‘Justice for this kid’

A few weeks after Abdel Jabbar’s death, another 17-year-old Palestinian-American, Florida-born Mohammad Khdour, was killed under similar circumstances in the West Bank.

On a recent visit to the site in the rocky hills outside the village of Biddu, Khdour’s father, Ahmad, led the way down a rocky path before coming to a halt.

“When he reach here, Mohammad got shot. He drive like 10 more meters and the car flipped over,” he said, pointing to where the car could still be seen on the hillside.

The family says Khdour and his cousin were driving home from a picnic when a gunman on the Israeli side of the nearby border fence—a guard, they say—opened fire on their car. The cousin was unharmed. Mohammad was shot in the head and killed.

“We need justice for this kid,” Ahmad Khdour said. “He got killed for nothing. He didn’t do anything to any human being in this area. Why did he get killed? And who killed him? It’s sad.”

As his family visited the site, they received a call from a U.S. Embassy official. He told them that the Israeli investigation into their son’s killing was advancing, but there’s been no official word that Israel has arrested any suspects.

This week, Khdour said Israeli authorities are planning to visit the scene with him and the witness, Mohammad’s cousin, as soon as next week. It’s unclear what investigative purpose the visit serves more than eight months after the shooting.

The family describes Mohammad as a sweet kid who loved cars. He wanted to finish high school, then go to college in the U.S. to study law.

“We’re not happy,” Ahmad Khdour said. “We not live good, we not sleep good. We not eating good because our kid go for nothing.”

Accusations of “double standard”

The most recent American death was Ayşenur Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish-American with a big smile who grew up in Seattle. She was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier at a West Bank protest in September.

For her father, Mehmet Suat Eygi, the pain is still raw.

“I only want justice fulfilled. The murderers who pulled the trigger and planned this should not go unpunished,” he told NPR from Turkey.

His daughter was born in Turkey but the family moved to the U.S. when she was ten months old, he said. Her entire education, from kindergarten through college, was in the U.S., and it instilled in her a set of values and beliefs, Eygi said.

“The reason why she was there (West Bank) was that she believed in human rights and freedom in her heart, and she wished this for everyone, no matter what religion they believe or which country they are from,” he said.

The Justice Department has not contacted him about her killing. He said he’s disappointed about their silence and lack of action; in his view, the U.S. has a responsibility to investigate.

He also said that if the same thing had happened in another country, the U.S. already would have taken action.

“What is the reason for this double standard?” he said. “We do not know. Is it because Ayşenur had dual citizenship? Or is it that the criminal, the country that is corresponding to this crime, is Israel?”

The Biden administration has called Eygi’s killing unjustifiable. Israel says it was unintentional, and that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division has launched an investigation.

Distrust about Israeli investigations

The Biden administration has urged Israel to conduct credible, transparent investigations into the Americans’ deaths.

Israel’s Shin Bet security agency did not offer comment after multiple requests from NPR about the status of the investigations. The Israeli military pointed to its previous statements on the deaths of Flickinger and Eygi.

Israel says it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians. But Israeli rights groups say complaints rarely lead anywhere, and that soldiers are rarely prosecuted.

An NPR review of data from Israel’s military previously showed that of the 1,260 complaints made regarding Israeli soldiers harming Palestinians and their property between 2017 and 2021, only 11 resulted in indictments—fewer than 1% of all complaints.

And the Israeli rights group Yesh Din says that since 2005 only 3% of investigation files opened into violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank have led to a conviction.

The families of the slain Americans are aware of Israel’s track record with these sorts of investigations, and they are deeply skeptical that any Israeli probe will deliver justice.

Scrutiny from U.S. Congress

They are not alone in their skepticism.

“I have doubts based on past experience and past patterns,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Van Hollen points to the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022. Abu Akleh was wearing a blue vest with “Press” written on it when she was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank.

Israel initially said Palestinian militants could have killed her. Eventually, Israel said one of its soldiers most likely killed her by mistake, but that no one would be punished.

Van Hollen said there was never an independent investigation into Abu Akleh’s death, nor was there any accountability.

“The United States and Israel are close partners,” he said. “Israel is the largest beneficiary of U.S. taxpayer assistance in the world and the United States government should expect and press for full transparency in the killings of American citizens.”

Van Hollen has met with the Abdel Jabbar and Khdour families. He’s also met with the families of the Americans killed or taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7. He said he fully supports the Justice Department investigating and prosecuting those cases. But that standard should apply for Americans killed by Israelis as well, he said.

“It’s important that the U.S. government and the Biden administration demand accountability and justice equally in the case of all killings of American citizens overseas,” he said.

The Justice Department needs to conduct its own investigations because the U.S. isn’t getting the cooperation it needs from Israel, he said.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also has called for the department to investigate, as have Democrats Patty Murray (Wash.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.).

“We fear that if this pattern of impunity does not end with Ms. Eygi, it will only continue to escalate,” Murry and Jayapal wrote to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month. “It is imperative that the United States take concrete and decision action to better protect American citizens.”

Daniel Estrin, Hadeel al-Shalchi and Gokce Saracoglu contributed to this report.