Palestinian American teen fatally shot by Israeli troops in West Bank village

TURMUS AYYA, West Bank - Hundreds of people gathered at the mosque in this small village Monday as they bid farewell to Amer Rabee, a 14-year-old Palestinian American shot dead by Israeli forces a day earlier.

The Israeli military shot three teenage boys in Turmus Ayay on Sunday, the mayor and mourners said, as violent attacks by Israeli settlers and troops in the West Bank continues to surge in the backdrop of the Israel-Gaza war.

The shots that Rabee faced proved fatal. His friend Ayoub Jabara, 15, also an American citizen, is in intensive care in Ramallah, according to the mayor, Lafi Shalabi. Their other friend, 15-year-old Abdulrahman Shihada, was also hospitalized by the attack, Shalabi added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement Sunday: “During a counterterrorism activity in the area of Turmus Aya, IDF soldiers identified three terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving. The soldiers opened fire toward the terrorists who were endangering civilians, eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists.”

The IDF released a grainy 10-second video purporting to show the incident, in which three figures can be seen and one appears to hurl something at the end.

Shalabi said the three boys were picking green almonds in the fields near Road 60, a major highway that cuts through the West Bank, when the IDF shot at them.

Rabee had moved to the occupied West Bank when he was a child, having grown up in the United States, his mother, Majd, told The Washington Post. Once he was done with high school he was hoping to move back, she added, to be with his four older siblings who reside in the United States.

Jabara and Shihada managed to escape despite their wounds toward the village and a separate Palestinian ambulance transferred them to the hospital, Suha Jabara, a relative of the slain teenager, said. When she heard the news of Rabee’s death, she immediately thought of her own sons. She is considering sending them to the United States where she hopes they might be safer.

On Monday, mourners waving Palestinian flags marched with Rabee’s body down the picturesque town’s winding roads to the cemetery. Rabee’s body was buried next to Omar Qateen, an American permanent resident who Palestinian officials say was shot dead by a settler during an attack on the town in June of 2023.

Known colloquially as Little America, around 85 percent of the population of Turmus Ayya has U.S. citizenship, Shalabi previously told The Post. Typically residents residing in the United States return for the summer, though most have not the last two summers since the war in Gaza broke out and tensions in the West Bank soared.

Many attendees at the funeral were U.S. citizens, but residents also said they were angry at the U.S. government for providing Israel with arms and political support, and attempts to displace them from their homes.

Rabee had enjoyed playing soccer and riding his scooter, his relative Mouman Jabara, 13, said at the funeral. Jabara was still shocked by Rabee’s death; he had been outside and heard the fateful gunfire.

Jabara said he moved 10 months ago to Turmus Ayya from New Jersey, as his parents wanted him to improve his Arabic and learn about his Palestinian heritage. He loves living there “but I am always scared,” he said. “Say I go out with friends - then suddenly there could be a raid” by the military or settlers.

Rabee’s distraught mother, Majd, sat surrounded by women mourning her son’s death at the funeral.

She said she last saw him before he left home to join his friends, but thought nothing more of the interaction as it appeared to be a normal day. Her son, she said, was smart, kind and diligent with his prayer.

“We are Palestinian,” she said. “This is what’s written for us. God bless his soul.”

Settler violence against Palestinians has spiked in the occupied West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack and resulting Israel-Gaza war. The Biden administration issued sanctions against some radical settlers, but President Donald Trump rescinded them shortly after taking office.

The Israeli security forces and their rules of engagement in the West Bank have also come under scrutiny, including in the case of Turkish American activist Aysenur Egyi, who was fatally shot by the IDF in September.

In 2024, two Palestinian American 17-year-olds, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar and Mohammad Ahmad Alkhdour, were killed in the West Bank in cases involving Israeli forces and settlers. Their cases remain unresolved. Families of the young men have faced harassment from Israeli authorities but have never been contacted by Israeli police, they told The Post last year.