2024-02-15 19:21:00
Blinken offers condolences over deaths of two American teenagers in West Bank, calls for investigation
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday offered his “deepest condolences” for two American teenagers “who reportedly died” in the West Bank and said there must be an investigation into their deaths.
CNN previously reported that Israeli forces had reportedly killed two 17-year-old Palestinian Americans in the West Bank in less than a month.
“We have made it clear that with respect to the incidents that you have alluded to, there needs to be an investigation. We need to know the facts. And if appropriate, there needs to be accountability,” Blinken said at a news conference in Albania in response to a question from CNN’s Alex Marquardt.
Additionally, an American woman was taken from her home in the West Bank and detained more than a week ago by Israeli forces. Her family alleges that she was beaten and denied medication while she was in custody. A spokesperson for the Israel Prison Service told CNN that she was “detained in accordance with the law” and that she had been “given medical treatment for medical problems that arose even before her arrest.”
Two other Americans were detained by Israeli forces during a raid on a home in Gaza last week, according to a relative in the United States.
“With respect to detainees, there is a limit to what I can say because of privacy laws and the requirements that come with them,” Blinken said.
“I can only say in general, without reference to specific cases, that we insist that people be treated fairly, with due process and with humanity,” he said. “That’s something we insist on, regardless of where an American citizen may be detained. And we will continue to insist.”
Some background: The US State Department said on Tuesday that an American had died in the West Bank on Saturday, but did not provide a name or the circumstances of his death. The group “Defense for Children – Palestine” said the American was 17-year-old Mohammad Ahmed Mohammad Khdour. The organization said Israeli forces shot him in the head on Saturday while he was traveling by car in the West Bank town of Biddu.
Last month, another American, 17-year-old Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, was fatally shot in the head and chest, his father told CNN. The IDF and Israeli police told CNN at the time they received a report that an off-duty police officer and an Israeli civilian shot at a “Palestinian individual suspected of throwing stones in the area of Al-Mazra’a ash -Sharqiya.”
His father, Hafiz Abdel Jabbar, rejected the Israeli claims in an interview with CNN, saying there was no way his son might have thrown stones at them from where he was standing. Abdel Jabbar added that he had video evidence of the incident, which he sent to the US consulate and some senators, and said finding answers regarding his son’s death has not been easy so far.
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