BIDDU, West Bank (AP) — When Sayfollah Musallet of Tampa, Florida, was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank two weeks ago, he became the fourth Palestinian-American killed in the occupied territory since the war in Gaza began.

No one has been arrested or charged in Musallet’s slaying – and if Israel’s track record on the other three deaths is any guide, it seems unlikely to happen. Yet Musallet’s father and a growing number of U.S. politicians want to flip the script.

“We demand justice,” Kamel Musallet said at his 20-year-old son’s funeral earlier this week. “We demand the U.S. government do something about it.”

Still, Musallet and relatives of the other Palestinian-Americans say they doubt anyone will be held accountable, either by Israel or the U.S. They believe the first word in their hyphenated identity undercuts the power of the second. And they say Israel and its law enforcement have made them feel like culprits — by imposing travel bans and, in some cases, detaining and interrogating them.

Although the Trump administration has stopped short of promising investigations of its own, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem has urged Israel to investigate the circumstances of each American’s death.

Writing on X on July 15, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said he’d asked Israel to “aggressively investigate the murder” of Musallet and that “there must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and 28 other Democratic senators have also called for an investigation. In a letter this week to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi, they pointed to the “repeated lack of accountability” after the deaths of Musallet and other Americans killed in the West Bank.

Israel’s military, police and Shin Bet domestic security agency did not respond to requests for comment about the Palestinian-Americans’ deaths.

Families have demanded

independent investigations

American-born teenagers Tawfic Abdel Jabbar and Mohammad Khdour were killed in early 2024 by Israeli fire while driving in the West Bank. In April 2025, 14-year-old Amer Rabee, a New Jersey native, was shot in the head at least nine times by Israeli forces, according to his father, as he stood among a grove of green almond trees in his family’s village.

In the immediate aftermath of both cases, Israeli authorities said that forces had fired on rock throwers, allegations disputed by the families and by testimony obtained by the AP. Israel pledged to investigate the cases further, but has released no new findings.

The teens’ families told the AP they sought independent investigations by American authorities, expressing doubts that Israel would investigate in good faith. According to the Israeli watchdog group Yesh Din, killings of Palestinians in the West Bank rarely result in investigations — and when they do, indictments are uncommon.

The U.S. Justice Department has jurisdiction to investigate the deaths of its own citizens abroad, but does so after it gets permission from the host government and usually works with the host country’s law enforcement. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem declined to say whether the U.S. has launched independent probes into the killings.

A spokesperson for the embassy said in a statement that investigations are “underway” in Israel over the deaths of the four Americans and that its staff is pressing the Israeli authorities to move quickly and transparently.

Sen. Van Hollen said that when the U.S deals with Israel it “either doesn’t pursue these cases with the vigor necessary, or we don’t get any serious cooperation.”

“And then instead of demanding cooperation and accountability, we sort of stop — and that’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to allow American citizens to be killed with impunity,” the Maryland Democrat said.

Israel says it holds soldiers and settlers accountable

Israel says it holds soldiers and settlers to account under the bounds of the law, and that the lack of indictments does not mean a lack of effort.

A prominent recent case was the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist for broadcaster Al Jazeera killed in the West Bank in 2022. An independent U.S. analysis of the circumstances of her death found that fire from an Israeli soldier was “likely responsible” for her killing but said it appeared to be an accident.

Despite an Israeli military investigation with similar conclusions, no one was ever disciplined.

Violence by Israeli forces and settlers has flared in the West Bank since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023. More than 950 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war in Gaza, according to the United Nations. Some have been militants killed in fighting with Israel, though the dead have also included stone-throwers and bystanders uninvolved in violence.