2 Palestinian shooting victims were Americans from NJ, families say

• NJ Gov. Phil Murphy, US Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim and other elected officials demanded answers.
• The Israeli Defense Forces said its soldiers shot the boys, alleging that they were targeted because they had been throwing rocks and endangering civilians.

The three friends − Amer, Abed and Ayub − went out to the almond groves near their family homes in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya on Sunday to enjoy the tart, green fruits that grow in springtime, their relatives said.

What happened next has left families grieving and outraged from the hills of the West Bank to the New Jersey communities where two of the boys once lived, and where many of their relatives still reside.

Shots rang out, 36 at first, fired by Israeli soldiers in the distance. After a brief lull, shooting resumed. The shots were closer in range. This time there were 10 shots.

These scenes were captured by a video shared with the Bergen Record, part of the USA TODAY Network, by a New Jersey advocacy organization on Tuesday.

The gunfire and the faint screams of children can be heard over the sound of the sunset call to prayer in audio from a neighbor’s surveillance camera. Amer's family, which provided the video, said it captures in sound what happened on April 6. Coupled with official reports and family interviews, it paints a bloody picture.

Amer Rabee, 14, who grew up in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, was shot 11 times and killed.

Ayub Igbara, 14, also a New Jersey native from Little Ferry, was shot three times and critically injured.

Abed Shehada, 15, is recovering from his wounds and is stable.

Igbara is a U.S. citizen. Rabee was a U.S. citizen as well.

The Israeli Defense Forces said its soldiers shot the boys, alleging that they were targeted because they had been throwing rocks and endangering civilians.

Amer’s father, Mohammed, on Tuesday described the harrowing events of that day, as he desperately tried to find his son and get him help. He was home, resting, when neighbors alerted him.

“Someone called me and said they started shooting," Rabee said. The caller told him, "Two are injured and one is still there. I think he is your son.”

NJ Gov. Phil Murphy, Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim demand answers

On Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issued a statement saying he was "asking for answers from the Israeli government" as to why Amer was killed.

On Monday, U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim issued separate statements calling for inquiries into Amer's killing and for the Trump administration to reinstate sanctions on Israeli settlers who have attacked Palestinians. Rep. Nellie Pou, who represents Amer's former town, Saddle Brook, said she had reached out to the State Department for answers, adding that families were "in anguish."

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Democrat who represents New Jersey's 12th Congressional District, called the incident “an atrocity” in a statement on X. “How can the Israeli military possibly justify shooting and killing an American teenager in cold blood?” she said. “The US must step in and stop this madness.”

Pleading for help

Rabee spoke about the ordeal by video at a press conference Tuesday at the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, New Jersey, where his brother is a board member. Alongside community leaders, he called for an investigation and accountability for his son and his friends.

When he got word that his son had been shot, Rabee called the U.S. Embassy, which helps American citizens abroad in emergency situations, according to its mission. The people on the line asked him many questions about his residency and his passport number, as he pleaded with them for help.

“I told them, 'Just do it fast,'” he said. “If he is injured, go fast and help him, to save his life."

“I heard from the Palestinian side, maybe after an hour and a half, 'Your son is already dead.'”

After the initial shooting, Ayub and Abed were able to run away, Rabee said. Israeli soldiers found Amer and kept him in their custody.

Residents of the town told Rabee that Israeli forces had detained an ambulance for 30 minutes at a checkpoint before it reached the two injured boys. The ambulance workers then asked about the third injured teenager. Israeli officials told them there were only two and to leave, they said.

Three or four hours later, Rabee got the call to come retrieve his son’s body at an Israeli military base about a half-hour away.

A doctor who examined the body found 11 gunshot wounds from two types of guns, Rabee said.

Bonded in friendship

The three boys were friends, bonded by their upbringing in the United States and their lives in Turmus Ayya. The affluent town is a popular destination for Palestinian Americans, many of whom spend summers there, retire there or live there part time.

The Rabee family moved to the West Bank in 2013, to Turmus Ayya. Like some Palestinian families, they send children there for a few years at a young age to learn about family, culture and language before returning to the United States.

They travel back and forth often, and Amer’s older siblings now live in the New Jersey towns of Wayne, Hackensack and Little Ferry.

Amer’s friends also were born in the United States and spent their early years there.

Ayub, 14, lived in Little Ferry for the first two years of his life before the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and later to the West Bank, said his uncle, Naji Igbara.

While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, Ayub lost a life-threatening 16 pints of blood, his family said. They worried he would bleed out and die. On Monday, Ayub underwent a six-hour surgery. He is expected to undergo surgery again on Wednesday. Igbara said his condition was critical.

Abed, from Macon, Georgia, is recovering and doing well, he said.

Family fires back at Israeli claims

The Israeli Defense Forces said it shot the boys “during operational activity of fighters from Unit 636 in the Turmus Ayya area.”

The fighters “identified three terrorists who were throwing rocks toward a highway with civilian vehicles,” the IDF said in a statement.

“The fighters fired at the terrorists who posed a danger to the civilians, eliminated one of them, and injured the two additional terrorists,” it said.

The IDF released a grainy, 10-second video showing three figures in a field. One appears to toss something at the end. It’s not clear who is in the video, if Amer threw anything, or what was thrown.

It could have been a rock to shake the green almond fruit off a tree, said Amer’s uncle, Rami Jbara of Wayne. He questioned why the IDF released only a 10 second clip, and nothing that shows what happened after that or who fired the close-range shots.

“Because we are Palestinian, we deserve to get shot in Israel?” Jbara asked. “He was here two months ago and celebrating a birth. His sister had a baby girl. He visited the family and just got back. He is still young, and I don’t believe he deserved to get shot.”

“This kid is unarmed. No weapons, no tanks, no guns, no nothing," Jbara added. "He’s just playing on top of a tree getting these almonds. They enjoy it.”

Even if Amer did throw rocks, asked his father, would it warrant a death sentence?

“They don’t want to catch him,” Rabee said. “They want to kill him.

“He is 14 years old. If he did something wrong, there are many ways to fix that and not to kill him.”

His son, he said, was kind and intelligent, ranking first in his class. He enjoyed playing video games with friends.

“He’s got many friends here in Turmus Ayya,” Rabee said. “Everyone is crying here and feels bad for losing him.”

“They called him a terrorist,” Rabee said. “They said, 'We shot three terrorists.'”

A plea for justice

The shooting on Sunday was not the first time Rabee family members were attacked in their town. Israeli settlers tore through the town on June 21, 2023, firing guns and burning homes and cars, in what they described as revenge for a shooting by Palestinian gunmen days earlier, Rabee recalled Tuesday.

Rabee’s home was set on fire, damaged and made unlivable, he said.

During the attack on their town, he and other residents pleaded for help from the U.S. Embassy. Its representatives did not stop the attacks. They met with residents a week later to collect information and video evidence.

Rabee heard from the embassy the day after his son was killed, he said. He got another call on Tuesday.

“Someone called me today from the U.S. Embassy [asking], 'Do you need any help?'” he said. “I said, 'Alhamdulillah ("praise be to God").' He died. I don’t know what now, what you do.' ”

He called for the United States to stop sending military aid to Israel.

The Palestinian American Community Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations of New Jersey demanded an investigation and called for accountability for the boys, and other Palestinian Americans who have been harmed.

“Our children have targets on their backs because of who they are, because of the identity they were born in,” said the center’s executive director, Rania Mustafa.

“Regardless of where you stand or what your politics are,” Mustafa said, “it is our responsibility as the adults of the world to protect our children. We call on the USA to formally investigate this grave injustice. We call on our local and state officials to publicly condemn the unjust murder of an American child.”

Selaedin Maksut, head of CAIR-NJ, echoed those calls. "Amer's family deserves justice," he said. "Our elected officials must speak up and call for accountability."

Correction: Abed Shehada, one of three boys shot on April 6, is not a U.S. citizen. Initial reports, provided by friends of the family, were incorrect.

Hannan Adely is a reporter with the Bergen Record, part of the USA TODAY Network.