Van Hollen Names Nine Americans Killed in the West Bank, Says None of Their Deaths Has Brought Accountability

Nine names, four years, zero prosecutions. That is the count Senator Chris Van Hollen read into the Congressional Record this week, case by case, in a Senate floor speech shared on his X account.

"I want to take a few minutes to tell my colleagues about these nine American citizens who've been killed by Israeli settlers or Israeli security forces in just over the last four years," Van Hollen said.

He named them: Omar Assad, 78; Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, 51; Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, 17; Mohammad Khdour, 17; Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26; Amer Rabee, 14; Saif Musallet, 20; Khamis Ayyad, 40; and Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19.

Van Hollen described Assad's death in January 2022 in detail. Israeli soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint, he said, and "dragged him from his car. They bound his hands behind his back. They gagged him. They blindfolded him, and they left him lying on the ground outside." Assad, 78, died of what Van Hollen called a stress-induced heart attack.

Abu Akleh, whose killing near the Jenin refugee camp in May 2022 drew international scrutiny and multiple independent investigations, was shot in the head while wearing what Van Hollen described as "a bright blue vest, clearly identifying her as a journalist."

Eygi, raised in Seattle, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier from roughly 200 meters away in September 2024, according to Van Hollen. He said Rabee, 14, was shot 11 times by two different weapons.

Van Hollen pointed to Washington's own ambassador to Israel for the contradiction he says defines the record. He cited Mike Huckabee's description of Musallet's killing as "a criminal and terrorist act," and quoted the ambassador saying "there must be accountability."

"So why has there been no accountability?" Van Hollen asked.

He repeated the same line after naming each of the nine: no one has been held accountable. "Nine American citizens dead. No accountability," he said.

The speech came a month after the Senate voted 47-51 to block a resolution Van Hollen sponsored that would have required the secretary of state to deliver a report within 30 days on Israel's human rights practices, including the status of any investigation into the killing of U.S. citizens by Israeli forces or settlers since January 2022.

No defendant has been named, charged, or convicted in connection with any of the nine deaths Van Hollen listed. His speech is, so far, a floor statement and a blocked bill, not the start of an inquiry.