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.”
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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.”
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See the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/trial-palestine-solidarity-leaders-attempt-make-example-peace-activists-campaigners-say
Right to protest on trial at Westminster Court
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/right-protest-trial-westminster-court
Police officers watch as people take part in a national march for Palestine on Whitehall in central London, January 18, 2025CHRIS NINEHAM, who along with Ben Jamal, is one of the activists facing trial over a Gaza demo last year, talks to Ben Chacko about the state’s increasing use of force against peaceful protest, and the significance of increasing imperial aggression around the globe
ON MONDAY, protesters will rally outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court at 9am calling for all charges against Chris Nineham and Ben Jamal to be dropped.
The Defend the Right to Protest rally will be addressed by MPs including Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, trade union leaders including Fran Heathcote and Maryam Eslamdoust, and leading voices from the arts and entertainment world such as Brian Eno, Juliet Stevenson and Khalid Abdalla.
It’s the morning Nineham and Jamal face trial on charges relating to a protest over a year ago — the January 18 2025 national march for Palestine.
Police had imposed restrictions on the march, saying it could not proceed to lay flowers in memory of Gaza’s murdered children outside the BBC as planned. Instructions were confusing, with demonstrators told they could and could not be in certain parts of central London depending on the time. Mass arrests followed alleged breaches of these conditions and Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Nineham, the chief steward of the march, found themselves charged with public order offences.
“This is only happening because of the restrictions put on this demonstration in particular and on Palestine demonstrations more generally,” Nineham explains.
“Since October 2023, we’ve seen an unprecedented change in the way peaceful protests are policed.
“I’ve been involved in organising demonstrations since the beginning of the century, and we’ve never had every single demo slapped with restrictions on where people can and can’t go.
“We’ve never had a situation where police are so intrusive on demos — looking not just at what placards people are holding but the T-shirts they’re wearing, the books that are on the stalls.
“This is political policing. And if police are the arbiters of where you can march, when you can march, how often you can march, which is in the pipeline — then you need state permission to demonstrate, and are approaching a situation where this isn’t a democracy at all, especially in association with all the cases around Palestine Action and the arrests there of people for holding the wrong placard and so on.”
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See the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/right-protest-trial-westminster-court
Chris Nineham: “This is the most authoritarian government in living memory”
Over 100 Palestinians arrested by Israel in West Bank since start of Ramadan, rights group says
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The Israeli army has detained more than 100 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a Palestinian rights group said Sunday, Anadolu reports.
Several women and children were among the detainees since Ramadan began on Feb. 18 in most provinces of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a statement.
The arrests were marked by “severe beating, organized acts of terrorism against detainees and their families, along with widespread sabotage and destruction of citizens’ homes, and confiscation of vehicles, money, and gold jewelry,” the group added.
More than 9,300 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children, and they face torture, starvation, and medical neglect that has led to the deaths of dozens, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations.
Israel has intensified operations in the occupied West Bank since launching its military campaign in Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023.
At least 1,117 Palestinians have been killed and around 11,500 others injured in attacks by the army and illegal settlers in the West Bank during that period.
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