Israel Attacks, Detains Americans During West Bank Assault | Palestine Policy Roundup 8.12.26
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
THE HUMAN COST OF WAR: BY THE NUMBERS:
🇵🇸 GAZA: 1,259 killed since the beginning of Trump's Gaza plan (Palestinian Ministry of Health); at least 3,795 Israeli violations of Trump's Gaza plan (Gaza Government Media Office); 73,388 killed during Israel's genocide (Palestinian Ministry of Health)
🇮🇷 IRAN: 3,468 killed (Iran Ministry of Health)
🇱🇧 LEBANON: 4,335 killed (Lebanon Ministry of Public Health)
🇮🇱 ISRAEL: 26 killed (Israel Ministry of Health)
🇺🇲 US: 18 service members killed (US Military)
🏛️ LEG UPDATES
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen led a bicameral letter signed by 19 Senators and House Members that calls for the restoration of sanctions against Israeli settlers responsible for attacks against Palestinians; investigations into the killings of Americans by Israeli violence; action in response to Israel's wrongful detention of US citizens; and accountability for property damage by Israeli settlers against Americans.
🚨 ISRAELI MILITARY AND SETTLERS ATTACK, DETAIN AMERICANS
As the Israeli military and settlers continue attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinian Americans are also being targeted by Israel's campaign of ethnic cleansing and brutal occupation. This not only calls into question the Trump administration's commitment to protect Americans abroad, but also whether Israel can be said to be acting like an ally.
SETTLER ATTACKS IGNORED: Palestinian Americans in Turmus Ayya have reported several attacks on their property by Israeli settlers based in a nearby settlement. Israeli settlers have attempted to burn down several homes and kill Palestinian Americans there, vandalized homes, threatened Palestinian Americans with their weapons, and more.
Approximately 80% of residents in Turmus Ayya are US citizens, and they report that the US embassy and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee have abandoned them following repeated calls to take action to stop further attacks.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Huckabee has visited the nearby settlement—where many of the settlers who attack Palestinians are based—twice in the last two years.
PALESTINIANS SPEAK OUT: Speaking about the fortifications that his neighbors have made to defend themselves from settler attacks, Ghaith Odeh said: "I don't want to live in a prison. I'm born and raised in America. We lived in freedom over there. And I'm not gonna live any other way." Maisoon Ali, a Palestinian-American who was attacked in her home in June, said: "It makes me emotional because this is our land and I'm 60 years old and I decided to retire in my family home. And I don't want to live like this, scared, and not doing my routine."
MILITARY ATTACKS: Israeli soldiers injured 81-year-old Khamis Rabee Jabara, who lives in Turmus Ayya, by beating and firing stun grenades toward him. Israeli soldiers invaded and occupied the home of Dr. Hassan Said Shukri, also in Turmus Ayya, late last month.
These attacks come as Israeli officials and the Israeli military have promised to carry out ethnic cleansing and launched several attacks across the West Bank.
ANOTHER AMERICAN CHILD DETAINED: In July, Israel wrongfully detained 16-year-old Adam Karakrah, a Palestinian American whose family is from Chicago. The Israeli military re-detained him this month on new accusations after his family paid a more than $1500 bail.
Israeli soldiers invaded his family's home in Sinjil, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. The soldiers threatened and interrogated his mother and sisters and pointed rifles at them.
Adam was reportedly interrogated by Israeli soldiers after he was re-detained. Israeli soldiers routinely abuse, threaten, and isolate children from their lawyers and parents in order to force confessions.
This comes less than a year after Israel released another Palestinian American child, Mohammed Ibrahim, who was held in Israeli detention for 18 months. Ibrahim reported being threatened into a confession by Israeli soldiers.
It also comes as Israel seeks to re-detain Palestinian American Sama Safi, who was wrongfully detained by the Israeli military earlier this summer, after her attorney secured her temporary release for urgent medical care.
🚧 TRUMP GAZA BOARD, ISRAEL RENEGE ON WITHDRAWAL PROMISE
Last weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a further Israeli military occupation of Gaza as Israel rejected a 15-point roadmap for the second phase of the Trump plan for Gaza. The roadmap, which President Trump announced less than two weeks ago, included the disarmament of Hamas in parallel with an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Trump's corporate board, known as the Board of Peace, has reneged on this promise and backed Israel's continued occupation of Gaza, despite the Board's own plan linking disarmament to Israel's withdrawal.
🩺 PALESTINIAN DOCTOR ABUSED IN ISRAELI DETENTION
Dr. Mazen Rantisi, known by many Palestinians in the West Bank as the "doctor of the poor," is being subjected to severe medical neglect, abuse, and humiliation in Israeli detention according to a lawyer who visited him in late July.
WHO IS DR. RANTISI? Dr. Mazen Rantisi is a Palestinian doctor who is known for providing free and low cost medical treatment to low-income Palestinians in the West Bank. He frequently waived medical fees and supplied prescriptions to families unable to afford them.
Israeli soldiers broke into his home in the middle of the night in Ramallah and detained him in late June. He has been wrongfully detained since then at Ofer Prison, known for grotesque human rights abuses.
His detention is reportedly connected to his work providing care to low-income Palestinians. Seven other Palestinian senior board members and healthcare workers also involved in this work have been targeted by the Israeli military as part of Israel's systemic attack on medical workers.
NEGLECT AND ABUSE: According to Dr. Rantisi's lawyer, he has rapidly lost weight because of the inedible and meager rations that Israeli prison officials give to him and other Palestinians. Israeli prison authorities are also withholding his critical daily medications from him.
Dr. Rantisi's lawyer also reported that he and other Palestinians detained in the facility are kept in painful stress positions whenever they leave their cell, including when they are taken for legal visits. For someone of Dr. Rantisi's age, these stress positions, which often include kneeling with his head on the floor, are nearly impossible.
Israeli soldiers are frequently raiding the cell that Dr. Rantisi shares with nine other Palestinians. These raids include beatings and the use of tear gas. Young Palestinians who share the cell with Dr. Rantisi are protecting him from being beaten by the Israeli soldiers during the raids.
MEDICAL WORKERS TARGETED: Dr. Rantisi's account of Israeli abuse of Palestinians in detention reflects the accounts of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who also faces life-threatenting conditions in Israeli detention, and countless other Palestinians.
Palestinian medical workers are targeted, detained arbitrarily, and tortured while in Israeli detention, according to Human Rights Watch.
Israel's arbitrary detention and torture of medical workers are likely war crimes which violate US laws governing weapons transfers. Weapons shipments to Israel must immediately halt to comply with the law.
📖 LEARN MORE about US legal obligations to end weapons deliveries to Israel in our recent policy memo.
💸 MOU UPDATE: ISRAEL ASKS FOR MORE US TAXPAYER MONEY
During his trip to Washington nearly two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly proposed that the US continue to provide Israel with $16 billion in American taxpayer funding for weapons. Netanyahu also proposed that $16 billion in joint funding would be used for the co-development and co-production of weapons—a potential boon for Israeli weapons manufacturers.
THE BAIT-AND-SWITCH: Netanyahu reportedly recognizes the strong political headwinds against further US funding for the Israeli military's weapons, and is pursuing this bait-and-switch approach to insulate US support from growing opposition to US complicity in Israel's crimes.
According to a recent poll published by the New York Times, nearly 60% of Americans oppose providing more weapons to Israel.
WHAT CONGRESS SHOULD KNOW: As Netanyahu made these proposals, negotiations for the next MOU are already underway. Israel is reportedly seeking to sign a new MOU during the lame duck period.
📖 LEARN MORE about why the co-research and co-production proposal is a bait-and-switch and why the US must avoid signing another MOU in our recent policy memo.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Sen. Chris Van Hollen: "Enough is enough. This time an 82-year-old American man has been left bloodied & injured by the IDF. And another attempt to hide evidence. This has to end. If @USAmbIsrael can't protect American citizens from this kind of violence, he needs to resign."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "Donald Trump lifted sanctions against Israeli settlers who are seizing homes in the West Bank. Now, the violence is worse, and even more Palestinians—and four Americans—have been killed by settlers and security forces. This is deeply wrong. These families deserve justice."
Rep. Ro Khanna: "American citizens are having their lives and livelihoods destroyed by [Israel's] settler movement, which is backed with American funding. We need to sanction violent settlers like Yinon Levi, who just this week was indicted for murdering Awdah Hathaleen in broad daylight in a Bedouin village that we visited. We need to sanction the construction companies and banks that provide material support to the settler movement. The American government is not powerless. We can demand the arrests of the extremist settlers, the destruction of outposts, and an end to this brutal occupation."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley: "It has now been more than two months since 20-year-old Palestinian American Sama Safi—a U.S. citizen—was abducted in the middle of the night from her family home in the West Bank by armed Israeli soldiers. I recently met with Sama's parents to hear their story. Amidst profound trauma, they summoned great clarity and courage to advocate for their child, who reports having endured inhumane conditions in detention. According to Sama's attorney, there is little credible evidence that would warrant her continued detention, and with every day that passes, her chronic health condition worsens. I've been calling on the Trump Administration to secure Sama's immediate release, continued access to medical care, and end all unjust and arbitrary detentions. And I'll keep fighting for Sama's release and demanding accountability from the Israeli government and the Trump Administration."
Rep. Delia Ramirez: "From Texas to Israel, imprisoning children is morally bankrupt. Our children do NOT belong in cages. Adam Wajeh Abdelfattah Karakrah, a 16-year-old with family in Chicago, remains detained in an Israeli prison notorious for abuse. The Trump administration must demand that both Adam and Sama Safi are safely returned to their families."