Israeli airstrikes killed at least 28 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said Saturday. Meanwhile, there were reports Saturday that a U.S. citizen was killed in the West Bank.
A family statement identified the man as Palestinian-American Saif Musallet, 20, who had traveled from Florida to visit relatives in the West Bank. The family statement said he was fatally beaten by Israeli settlers in a confrontation while protecting his family’s land. The settlers then “surrounded Saif for over three hours” and prevented paramedics and an ambulance from reaching him, according to the family. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the incident occurred in Sinjil, a village north of Ramallah.
The Musallet family called for the State Department to conduct an investigation into the incident. The State Department said it was aware of reports that a U.S. citizen had died in the territory, but did not confirm the person’s identity or cause of death. Violence in the West Bank is on the rise, with Israeli settlers expanding their efforts to occupy land in the contested region. The United Nations considers the Israeli settlements illegal.
In Gaza, at least 13 people were killed in Deir al-Balah after Israeli airstrikes pounded the area starting late Friday, officials in Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital said. The victims included four children and two women, hospital officials said.
Another four people were killed in strikes near a fuel station, and 15 others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.
The Israeli military said in a statement that over the past 48 hours, troops struck approximately 250 targets in the Gaza Strip, including militants, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, anti-tank missile launch posts, sniper posts, tunnels and additional Hamas infrastructure sites. The military did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment on the civilian deaths.
Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and abducted 251. They still hold 50 hostages, fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The U.N. and other international organizations see their figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
President Trump has said that he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war. But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough.
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