Washington, DC – The family of Sayfollah Musallet, the United States citizen who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank last week, is calling for justice.
Musallet’s relatives want Washington to launch its own investigation into the incident to ensure accountability.
The Florida-born 20-year-old is the ninth US citizen to be killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers since 2022. None of the previous cases have led to criminal charges or US sanctions against the perpetrators.
That lack of response is what advocates call a “pattern of impunity”, wherein Washington demands a probe without placing any significant pressure on Israel to produce results.
In Musallet’s case, the administration of President Donald Trump urged Israel to “aggressively” investigate the killing.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, said in a statement on Tuesday.
It is not clear if the US has taken any further actions to seek justice in the aftermath of the fatal beating.
Critics say the “pattern of impunity” stems in part from the historically close bonds between the US and Israel. Successive presidential administrations in the US have affirmed their “unwavering” support for Israel, and the US provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually.
Here, Al Jazeera looks at who the eight other victims were, how the US has responded to their killing and where their cases stand.
Omar Assad
Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American, was driving home in the occupied West Bank after visiting friends on January 12, 2022, when Israeli soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint.
According to the autopsy report and his family’s account, the troops dragged Assad out of his car and then handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded him, leaving him to die at a cold construction site.
The administration of then-President Joe Biden called on Israel to launch a criminal investigation into the incident.
But Assad’s relatives and lawmakers from his home state of Milwaukee wanted Washington to conduct its own probe – a demand that never materialised.
As is often the case, Israel’s investigation into its own soldiers’ conduct did not lead to any criminal charges.
In 2023, the Israeli army said that it found no “causal link” between the way its soldiers treated Assad and his death.
The Biden administration also declined to apply sanctions under US law to the Israeli unit that killed Assad: the Netzah Yehuda, a battalion notorious for its abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Last year, the US Department of State announced that the battalion will still be eligible for US aid under the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance for security units involved in human rights violations.
Shireen Abu Akleh
Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera reporter, was fatally shot by Israeli forces during a raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on May 11, 2022.
Owing to her status as one of the most celebrated journalists in the Middle East, her killing sparked international outrage from rights groups and press freedom advocates.
Despite the global attention, Israeli forces attacked her funeral in Jerusalem, beating the pallbearers carrying her coffin with batons.
A portrait of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is displayed during a memorial mass held at a church in Beit Hanina in occupied East Jerusalem [AFP]
Israel initially denied killing Abu Akleh, 51, falsely claiming that the reporter was shot by armed Palestinians.
Months later, after multiple visual investigations showed that Israeli soldiers targeted Abu Akleh, Israel acknowledged that its forces likely killed the reporter, dismissing the incident as an accident.
The Biden administration faced waves of pleas by legislators and rights groups to launch its own investigation into the killing, but it resisted the calls, arguing that Israel is capable of investigating itself.
In November 2022, Israeli media reports claimed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating the shooting of Abu Akleh, but the US Department of Justice never confirmed the probe.
More than three years after Abu Akleh’s killing, her family and supporters say justice in her case has not been served.
Tawfiq Ajaq
Born in Louisiana, Ajaq was 17 when he visited the occupied West Bank to see his relatives last year.
On January 19, 2024, he was driving a pick-up truck with his friends when Israelis sprayed the vehicle with bullets and killed him.
Mohammed Salameh, who witnessed and survived the attack, said the shooting was unprovoked.
While it is not clear which individual shot Ajaq, Israel said the incident involved “an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian” and was sparked by “rock-throwing activities” – a claim that Salameh has denied.
The US State Department called for an “urgent investigation to determine the circumstance” of the incident.
But more than 19 months after the shooting, Israel has not publicly released any findings or charged any suspect in the shooting.
“We feel abandoned by our government,” Ajaq’s uncle, Mohammad Abdeljabbar, told Al Jazeera last year.
Mohammad Khdour
Khdour was also 17 when he was killed under almost identical circumstances to Ajaq just weeks later.
According to his cousin Malek Mansour, who witnessed the attack, an unidentified assailant opened fire at their car in the occupied West Bank from a vehicle with an Israeli number plate.
Mansour said the attack was unprovoked. Khdour died on February 10, 2024.
The two had been eating cookies and taking selfies moments before the shooting.
Once again, Washington called for a probe.
“There needs to be an investigation. We need to get the facts. And if appropriate, there needs to be accountability,” then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at that time.
But advocates say that, while normally Israel launches sham investigations into such incidents, Israeli authorities have not acknowledged Khdour’s killing at all.
The Israeli military and police told the publication Haaretz last year that they are not familiar with the case.
Jacob Flickinger
An Israeli air strike targeted a World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicle in Gaza on April 1, 2024, killing seven aid workers, sparking anger and condemnation across the world.
Among the victims was Flickinger, a 33-year-old US-Canadian dual citizen.
Biden called for a “swift” Israeli investigation into the attack, which he said “must bring accountability”.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the blast a “tragic accident”.
A vehicle for the World Central Kitchen sits charred in the central Gaza Strip after a deadly Israeli strike, on April 2, 2024 [Ahmed Zakot/Reuters]
The Israeli military said the commander who ordered the strike had “mistakenly assumed” that gunmen in the area were in the aid vehicle.
It added that the commander did not identify the car as associated with World Central Kitchen, a well-known hunger relief initiative founded by celebrity chef Jose Andres.
A World Central Kitchen logo was displayed prominently on the top of the vehicle before the attack.
Israel said it dismissed two commanders over the incident, but there were no criminal charges.
Since then, Israel has killed hundreds of aid workers in Gaza, including Palestinian staff members from World Central Kitchen.
Last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza as well as other alleged war crimes.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi
Eygi, born in Washington state, was participating in a protest against an illegal settler outpost in the West Bank on September 6, 2024, when an Israeli soldier shot her in the head.
She was 26.
While there were reports of a scuffle during a crackdown on the demonstration by Israeli forces, several witnesses have said that Eygi was shot during a calm period after the chaos had ended.
The State Department called on Israel to “quickly and robustly” investigate Eygi’s killing, but it ruled out conducting its own probe.
Biden dismissed her death as an “accident”, but Blinken condemned it as “unprovoked and unjustified”.
On the same day that Eygi was fatally shot by Israel, the US Justice Department filed charges against Hamas leaders after the killing of US-Israeli captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Gaza.
The Israeli military said its soldiers likely killed Eygi “indirectly and unintentionally” – a conclusion that her family called offensive, stressing that she was targeted by a sniper.
“The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling,” the family said in a statement.
Trump ally Randy Fine, now a Congress member, celebrated the killing of Eygi. “One less #MuslimTerrorist,” he wrote in a social media post, referring to the shooting.
Kamel Jawad
When Jawad, a celebrated leader in the Lebanese American community in Michigan, was killed by an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon on October 1 of last year, the Biden administration initially denied he was a US citizen.
Washington later acknowledged that Jawad was American, expressing “alarm” over his killing.
“As we have noted repeatedly, it is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy,” the US State Department said at that time.
Israel has not commented publicly on the strike that killed Jawad.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) slammed the Biden administration’s handling of the case, including the US government’s initial “smug” response.
“It’s as if they’re intentionally trying to see our people killed, intentionally downplaying us and dehumanising us,” ADC executive director Abed Ayoub told Al Jazeera last year.
Amer Rabee
On April 6, Israeli forces in the West Bank fatally shot 14-year-old Rabee, a New Jersey native, and called him a “terrorist”. Two of his friends were also injured in the attack.
While the Israeli military accused Rabee and his friends of throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles, the slain teenager’s family insisted that he was picking almonds on the side of the road.
The Trump administration failed to pursue accountability in the case or even publicly press for further details about the incident.
Instead, the State Department cited the Israeli account about the 14-year-old’s killing.
“We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” the State Department said at that time. “We acknowledge the [Israeli military’s] initial statement that expressed that this incident occurred during a counter-terrorism operation.”
