Father of slain American slaps U.S. support
AL-MAZRA’A ASH-SHARQIYA, West Bank — The father of an American killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank railed against Washington’s military support for Israel, as hundreds of mourners buried the 17-year-old Saturday in the family’s ancestral Palestinian village.
Tawfiq Ajaq’s death Friday drew an immediate expression of concern from the White House and a pledge from Israeli police to investigate.
It was the latest fatal shooting in the West Bank, where nearly 370 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza more than three months ago. The Biden administration has repeatedly expressed concern about violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in recent months.
During Saturday’s funeral, the teen’s father criticized the long-standing U.S. support for Israel.
“They are killer machines,” he said of Israeli forces. “They are using our tax dollars in the U.S. to support the weapons to kill our own children.”
Tawfiq was born and raised in Gretna, Louisiana, near New Orleans, relatives said. His parents brought him and his four siblings to the village of Al-Mazra’a Ash-Sharqiya last year so they could reconnect with Palestinian culture.
On Saturday, crowds of Palestinians poured through village streets, following men who held aloft a stretcher with the teen’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag.
Hafez Ajaq implored Americans to “see with their own eyes” the ongoing violence in the West Bank.
The circumstances of the shooting remained unclear.
Ajaq’s relative, Joe Abdel Qaki, said Tawfiq and a friend were having a barbecue in a village field when he was shot by Israeli fire, once in the head and once in the chest.
Abdel Qaki said he arrived at the field shortly after the shooting and helped transport Tawfiq to an ambulance. He said Israeli forces briefly detained him and other Palestinians, asking for their IDs before the men could get to Tawfiq.
He said Tawfiq died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Police said the incident would be investigated.
Asked about the shooting, U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby said officials at the White House are “seriously concerned about these reports.”