Israeli army shoots American citizen in West Bank

Israeli forces shot and wounded an American citizen during a demonstration held on Friday in Beita, a Palestinian village near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, several Palestinian human rights organizations told Middle East Eye.

Amado Sison* was struck by a bullet that passed through the back of his right thigh, leaving a large exit wound. Although the bullet did not hit any of Sison’s major arteries or bones, he did suffer soft tissue damage, according to Vivi Chen, an activist with Defend Palestine:Faz3a. Chen was also the victim of an attack by Israeli settlers last month.

Sison was carried more than 500 meters as Israeli forces continued to attack Palestinians gathered at the demonstration site.

After being shot, activists reported that Sison’s ambulance was forced to stop at several Israeli checkpoints, which resulted in a delay in his medical care. He eventually underwent successful surgery and was seen smiling in his hospital room.

Middle East Eye reached out to the US State Department for comment on the incident but had not received a response by the time of publication.

The shooting occurred in the context of a six-week-long campaign by Israeli settlers accompanied by Israeli soldiers who were antagonizing the Palestinian residents of Beita. In June, the Israeli security cabinet legalized the illegal settlement outpost of Evyatar on Beita land, and it has since been repopulated with Israeli settlers.

Palestinians have been demonstrating against the settlement since it was first built in 2013, and in recent weeks those protests have been reignited, with the aim of stopping the expropriation of Palestinian land. However, Israeli forces have used violent means against the protesters, including tear gas and live ammunition.

A total of 17 people have been killed in Beita by Israeli forces or settlers since 2020.

“Ten months after the US-funded Israeli genocide under the guise of war in Gaza, we stand in unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and the popular resistance in Beita,” Defend Palestine:Faz3a, PAL-Shield and the International Solidarity Movement said in a statement shared with MEE.

Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has increased since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza last October.

In June, the United Nations reported that Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers had killed more than 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since the war began.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said in a report that the cases of these killings showed “consistent violations of international human rights law on the use of force by the ISF (Israeli security forces) through the unnecessary and disproportionate use of lethal force and an increase in apparently planned targeted killings.”

Sison is not the first American to be attacked by Israeli forces. Several American citizens have been killed by Israeli soldiers or died in Israeli military custody.

Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen and veteran Palestinian journalist, was killed by Israeli snipers during a military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.

Despite widespread international outrage over the killing and calls for a US investigation, the Biden administration has released a classified report that remains unseen by the public.

* A pseudonym is used to protect the victim’s identity.

Via Middle East Eye and News Agencies