KKK-style Israeli lynching in occupied West Bank leaves American teenager dead
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Details have emerged of the killing of a 19-year-old American from Philadelphia who was shot dead by an armed Israeli settler during a raid on the Palestinian village of Mukhmas in the illegally occupied West Bank. The events were reconstructed by journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who interviewed multiple eyewitnesses present during the attack.
Nasrallah Abu Siyam was killed on the first full day of Ramadan after masked settlers, some armed with automatic weapons, stormed the small shepherding community alongside Israeli soldiers. At least four other Palestinians were shot, several more were beaten with metal rods, and more than 300 sheep and goats were driven off by settlers as troops fired tear gas and stun grenades into residential areas.
According to eyewitness testimony gathered by Nathaniel, the violence began at around 2:35 pm when a Palestinian shepherd grazing livestock near the village was surrounded by settlers attempting to seize his flock. He managed to escape and alert residents, who gathered near the girls’ school to form a human barrier to prevent the theft of their animals.
Read: Israeli Jewish settlers set Palestinian cars, homes, fields on fire
Among the settlers was a man identified by villagers as Amir, reportedly a security guard at a nearby outpost, armed with an M16 rifle. Witnesses said he fired into the air and ordered residents to retreat, promising to escort the settlers away.
Minutes later, additional settlers arrived, accompanied by approximately five Israeli soldiers. Villagers say the same military unit frequently appears during similar incursions in the area. Settlers and soldiers again ordered residents to withdraw, assuring them their livestock would not be touched. But as villagers stepped back, settlers opened the enclosures and began driving the animals away.
At 3:27 pm, Israelis opened fire when a Palestinian men attempted to retrieve their sheep and goats. Settlers and soldiers beat several men, while troops fired tear gas and stun grenades into the village. An elderly man was reportedly burned by a canister. Women and children could be heard screaming from inside their homes.
As chaos spread, a group of villagers took a back route to intercept settlers driving off their livestock, the primary source of income for several families. One man was surrounded and beaten unconscious with metal rods.
At 3:48 pm, a settler raised his M16 and opened fire into the crowd of villagers rushing to rescue the injured man. Witnesses said four or five other settlers followed, shooting live rounds at Palestinians on their own land. At least five men were hit.
Nasrallah Abu Siyam was shot in the thigh, the bullet severing his main artery. After he fell, settlers reportedly struck him with rods. At least one gunman dropped to one knee in a firing position, deliberately aiming at those attempting to carry the wounded to safety.
Throughout the shooting, soldiers positioned nearby continued firing tear gas into the village.
When the gunfire stopped, neither settlers nor soldiers provided medical assistance. Instead, they withdrew together, while settlers walked off with hundreds of animals under military watch.
An ambulance called to the scene was unable to pass an Israeli military checkpoint. Villagers loaded the wounded into private cars and attempted to drive toward Ramallah. Traffic near the checkpoint became gridlocked. As Nasrallah bled heavily in the back seat, other drivers attempted to clear a path.
When vehicles could move no further, men carried him on foot to a waiting ambulance. He arrived at hospital nearly two hours after being shot. Doctors attempted to save him for four and a half hours, but he had lost too much blood. At 10 pm, he was pronounced dead.
Nasrallah is at least the seventh American citizen killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in the West Bank since October 2023. In none of the cases have perpetrators been held accountable.
‘Like the Jim Crow South’
Reflecting on the killing, Nathaniel compared conditions in the occupied West Bank to the atmosphere of the Jim Crow South in the US, where racial terror and lynchings were used to dispossess Black families and enforce segregation.
Read: Israeli settlers torch cars, homes across West Bank
“I can only imagine it as something akin to the atmosphere Black families described in parts of the Jim Crow South, where the Ku Klux Klan rode at night, the law often on their side, delivering warnings in fire and blood,” said Nathaniel. “Lynchings were staged to strike maximum fear into the hearts of entire communities—to enforce racial hierarchy, crush political participation, and drive families from land and livelihoods they had built. The message was unmistakable: you have no protection here, and whatever you have can be taken”.
Nathaniel explained that unlike the American south, settlers “operate not with tacit protection from the law, as the KKK did, but with the visible backing of soldiers and a state apparatus.”
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Trial of Palestine solidarity leaders is an attempt to ‘make an example’ of peace activists, campaigners say
Activists, MPs, trade unionists and artists protest in support of Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal and Stop the War Coalition vice-chair Chris Nineham at Westminster magistrates’ court, February 23, 2026…
Speaking outside the court, Stop the War convener Lindsey German said: “The people who should be in the dock are [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu, Keir Starmer and David Lammy.
“They have facilitated and allowed a genocide. We are the people standing up to it. And we will not stop. We will not stop organising.
“We have had 43 national demonstrations. Every single one of them has had restrictions put upon them by the Metropolitan Police.
“What is the aim of that? The aim is to stop people from protesting.
“There is no justification to do so. Our demonstrations have included people from every community, and they have been there to stand up for the Palestinian people.”
Her sentiment was echoed by Stop the War colleague Alex Kenny, who along with CND general secretary Sophie Bolt, will face a trial starting on March 10 facing similar charges.
“Criticising genocide is not only legitimate, it is necessary,” he said.
“We will not stop because a world that tolerates genocide is a world that can tolerate any atrocity, any crime, any violation of rights.
“Those who protest it should be thanked, not put on trial.”
…
See the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/trial-palestine-solidarity-leaders-attempt-make-example-peace-activists-campaigners-say
Morning Star Editorial: Juries growing challenge to the state repressive measures seals their fate
RENEGADE: Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy on a visit to Downing Street briefing on Monday February 9 2026AS ONE of the first black MPs elected in post war Britain, Bernie Grant was in the thick of the fight for justice and for his defence of the rights of people, especially young black people, he was extensively traduced and misquoted.
Every year tribute is paid on the anniversary of his election as MP for Tottenham. One tribute described him as an all-round Tottenham legend and pioneering campaigner for social justice and equality.
These words were written by his successor as MP for Tottenham David Lammy — presently justice secretary in Keir Starmer’s Cabinet — who went on to say: “His legacy will never be forgotten.”
It would have been impossible for Lammy to have been selected as Bernie Grant’s successor if the electorate had even the faintest sense that Lammy’s professed admiration for his predecessor hid a rank opportunism that today distinguishes him as perhaps the minister most servile to the imperatives of the Establishment.
We can measure Lammy’s abandonment of such principles as he once espoused by taking a look at his proposals to end jury trials for a huge number of defendants in Britain’s chaotic and underfunded justice system.
The ostensible reason for this drastic diminution of our human right to be judged by our peers is the backlog of cases in the courts system with many cases scheduled for years ahead.
Successive governments have diminished funding for the justice system so that — from the probation service to prisons, from reduced court staffing numbers to cuts in legal aid — the class bias of the legal system, which puts those with limited financial means under pressure to abandon their right to due process, is ever more intense.
But, opinion is hardening that introducing judge-only trials for many criminal cases would further increase the risk of miscarriages of justice.
Lammy proposes limiting jury trials to accusations of rape, murder and certain “public interest” cases. His plan is for most defendants to be tried by a single judge able to pass sentences up to five years in prison.
This is a direct repudiation of the point made just last year by the minister for courts and legal services, Sarah Sackman, who told Parliament: “Let me be clear: jury trials will always be a cornerstone of British justice. This government will do whatever it takes to protect the fundamental right to a fair trial.”
She went on to argue that: “The vast majority of cases in our courts are already heard without juries. Around 90 per cent of all criminal cases are dealt with robustly and fairly by magistrates, with no jury.”
This rather begs the question, what is the necessity to further reduce the role of juries in delivering justice if restoring proper funding could restore the timely delivery of justice?
The answer lies in the recent tendency of juries to take a common sense and principled approach and acquit in cases where citizen action against war and enterprises servicing genocide falls victim to overweening state power.
“Jury trials are fundamental to the justice system … fundamental to our democracy. We must protect them.” These words of Lammy were quoted against him in a parliamentary debate just before Christmas by the then shadow justice secretary who told MPs that Lammy was “plotting to discard centuries of jury trials without so much as a by-your-leave.”
It is a measure of this government’s political disarray that a valid, if cynically hypocritical, criticism of Lammy’s illiberal measure — designed to strengthen the power of the state against its citizens — can be so easily gifted to a right-wing Tory defector who now sits among Boris Johnson’s Cabinet as a Reform UK MP.
[Hoping that Morning Star will excuse me republishing this article without permission.]