Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

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Red poppies dot the hillside in the West Bank where Israeli settlers from the Neve Erez outpost killed 19-year-old Palestinian American Nasrallah Abu Siyam, a U.S. citizen born in Philadelphia.

On February 22, Abu Siyam’s closest friends gathered with a village elder to pay their respects at a makeshift memorial on a hill overlooking Mukhmas, the Palestinian village in the West Bank where the Israeli settlers killed Abu Siyam. The winter rains have come to Israel and the West Bank, but Abu Siyam’s blood had not been washed from the ground. Stones surrounded the site of his killing, marked with a Palestinian flag.

The group of 12 knelt and recited prayers with the village elder, who urged them to focus on prayer and reflection during the holy month of Ramadan instead of revenge. Abu Siyam was the sixth Palestinian American killed by Israeli settlers or the Israeli military in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. More than 230 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank last year.

Present at the makeshift memorial service was a Palestinian American named Akram Abu Ali, who lives in Bergen, New Jersey, and works in wholesale supply. Abu Ali told Truthout that he knew the Abu Siyam family from growing up in the village and was at the scene in Mukhmas when Israeli settlers killed Abu Siyam. He said he was visiting his family in Mukhmas for Ramadan, as he does every year, and did not expect violence.

Like many West Bank villages, Mukhmas has a significant Palestinian American population, Abu Ali said. This is the result of a wave of immigration from the West Bank to the United States following the Six-Day War in 1967 and Israel’s occupation of the territory. Those who were able to leave passed their U.S. citizenship to their children and grandchildren.

West Bank Settlers Have Injured More People in 2025 Than Last 2 Years Combined

Turmus Ayya, a wealthy Palestinian town in the central West Bank, has a Palestinian American population in the thousands and is frequently targeted in settler attacks. According to Abu Ali, an eyewitness to the events on the hillside, the trouble began when seven or eight settlers entered a sheep pen and began leading hundreds of sheep away from the village toward Ma’ale Mikhmas.

“What’s stopping these guys from coming in tomorrow, burning houses, burning cars, stealing more sheep, or maybe going into homes and stealing furniture?”

“What’s stopping these guys from coming in tomorrow, burning houses, burning cars, stealing more sheep, or maybe going into homes and stealing furniture?”

In response to increasing settler violence, the village council had installed a security system with cameras and motion detectors. When word spread in a village WhatsApp group that settlers were stealing sheep, a group of Palestinian youth went out to confront them. Footage of the incident shows Palestinian youth throwing rocks at the settlers, who then called the Israeli military.

About 40 minutes later, Israeli forces arrived and deployed tear gas and stun grenades. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Palestinians were injured by settler fire........

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