U.S. Government Concerned About West Bank Death of Palestinian-American
Image by Getty Images
JERUSALEM — The Obama administration reportedly said it still has “concerns” about the death of a Palestinian-American teen at the hands of Israeli security forces.
Mahmoud Shalan, 16, who was born in Florida and held U.S. citizenship, was killed in February at a West Bank checkpoint near Ramallah where Israeli soldiers say he tried to stab them. Shalan was shot five times.
Israeli soldiers are also accused of preventing a Palestinian ambulance from attending to the teen as he lay bleeding on the ground, though an IDF medical unit and a team from the Magen David Adom rescue service reportedly assisted him before he succumbed to his wounds.
The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv asked the Israeli military to investigate the incident.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, Anne Patterson, said in a letter sent this week to religious groups that had raised concerns about the case that the Israeli Military Advocate General told the U.S. that it “did not find that the soldiers’ actions gave rise to reasonable grounds for suspicion of criminal conduct.”
The advocate general then ordered the case closed “without opening a criminal investigation or ordering further action against those involved in the incident,” Patterson wrote, according to the Associated Press.
Patterson said that U.S. officials “continue to have concerns about the death of this American citizen” after a review of evidence gathered by Israel. She said in the letter that the U.S. “will remain engaged with the government of Israel on this issue.”
In the days after the shooting, Haaretz reported that Shalan’s family did not believe the teen went to the checkpoint to stab a soldier and that he planned to go to medical school in the United States.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
