https://www.commondreams.org/news/west-bank-settler?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=7b937d7420-Top+News%3A+Mon.+2%2F16%2F26+w%2F+fundraiser_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-5cab4589e1-600270383
Relatives mourn during the funeral of
Nasrallah Abu Siyam, who was reportedly killed by Israeli settlers during a
raid on the town of Mukhmas, northeast of East Jerusalem, on February 19, 2026.
(Photo by Issam
Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
‘A State-Sponsored Lynching, Funded by the
US’: Israeli Settlers Kill Palestinian-American in West Bank
Local officials called the killing a “fully-fledged
crime... carried out under the protection and supervision of the Israeli
occupation forces.”
Julia Conley
Feb 20, 2026
Palestinian authorities and witnesses to an
Israeli settler attack in the West Bank that killed a 19-year-old
Palestinian-American this week said the young man, Nasrallah Abu Siyam, had
been trying to stop settlers from attacking a farmer in the village of Mukhmas
when he was fatally shot.
Abu Siyam was an American citizen, his
mother told the Associated Press, and was in his village Wednesday afternoon
when a group of settlers arrived there and attempted to steal sheep from a
local farmer.
After residents intervened, the Israel
Defense [sic] Forces arrived and shot tear gas, sound grenades, and live
ammunition, according to Mukhmas resident Raed Abu Ali. The IDF told the AP
that it had only used “riot dispersal methods” to stop Palestinians in the town
from throwing rocks.
But Abu Ali reported that the settlers
who had initiated the assault “were encouraged” when the IDF got involved, and
they “started shooting live bullets” as well as hitting injured people with
sticks.
Several other Palestinians sustained
gunshot wounds. The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed Abu Siyam’s
killing.
The governorate of Jerusalem called the
killing a “fully-fledged crime... carried out under the protection and
supervision of the Israeli occupation forces.”
Abu Siyam was the second
Palestinian-American to be killed by Israeli settlers in less than a year and
at least the 11th to be killed since 2022.
Israeli settlers and military forces
killed 240 Palestinians in the West Bank last year as violence there surged and
as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government pushed to further
illegally annex the occupied territory, with Israelis building 130 new
settlements in the West Bank in 2024 and 2025.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday,
progressive lawmakers in the US have called on President Donald Trump to take
action to stop Israel from its illegal annexation, but the president has
reportedly approved of plans like one that proposes the creation of the E1
settlement, which “buries the idea of a Palestinian state,” according to
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Abu Siyam was killed days after Israel
approved a plan to designate large parts of the West Bank as “state property”
of Israel, forcing Palestinians to prove that they own their land.
Breaking the Silence, a group formed by
former Israeli soldiers to oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestinian
territories, emphasized that while the IDF did not carry out the attack that
killed Abu Siyam, the military has played an active role in settlers’ assaults
on Palestinian communities in the West Bank, including in Mukhmas.
“Since October, the village has faced
escalating settler terror: olive trees uprooted, Palestinians and activists
attacked and hospitalized, homes torched,” said the group. “When residents
tried to rebuild their burned homes after the pogrom that took place three
weeks ago, the army blocked them, declaring the area a ‘closed military zone.’
Somehow, measures are taken only after the pogrom. Never to prevent it. This is
not a mistake, it’s strategy.”
“The IDF is not ‘failing its mission,’”
Breaking the Silence added. “It is implementing a policy: Settlers initiate the
violence, the army enforces the outcome, until communities are pushed out. If
we don’t stop it, Muḥkmas’ story will be no different.”
A US official told Reuters that “the US
Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of US
citizens overseas,” and a spokesperson for the US embassy in Israel told the AP
that US officials “condemn this violence.”
The anti-war group CodePink, however,
emphasized that deadly settler attacks, including those that have killed US
citizens, are “funded by the United States,” the largest international
financial backer of the IDF.
According to the United Nations Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli forces and settlers have
killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since 2023 and have
forcibly displaced more than 10,000.
Our work is licensed under Creative
Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Julia Conley is a staff writer for
Common Dreams.
Donations can be
sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt.
206, Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The
master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought
the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while
the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially
their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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