Palestinians mourn Palestinian-American teenager killed in West Bank

Palestinians gathered Saturday to mourn the death of a teenager killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged since war erupted in Gaza.

In a case that has drawn concern from the White House, seventeen-year-old Tawfiq Ajaq was shot dead Friday in the town of Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah, the Palestinian news agency WAFA and relatives of the young man said.

Ajaq was a US citizen, according to his father and a local official in the area, Hassan Zeben.

“He is a soldier of Palestine,” women at the funeral chanted in English.

Friends and relatives gathered at a small morgue in Silwad, where the body had been kept overnight, greeting each other in Arabic as well as English spoken with an American accent.

The body was draped in a Palestinian flag and adorned with flowers before mourners carried it away.

The White House said Friday it was “seriously concerned” about reports that a Palestinian teenager with US citizenship had been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank.

“We’re seriously concerned about these reports. The information is scant at this time, we don’t have perfect context about exactly what happened,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Asked on Friday for comment, an Israeli army spokesman said they were “checking this event.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and its troops regularly carry out incursions into Palestinian communities.

The raids have escalated since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began on October 7, increasingly lasting days and accompanied by air strikes.

Since then, Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 360 people in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.