Commemorating the Life of Tawfic Abdel-Jabbar

AMP Demands Justice for Murdered Palestinian American Teen

This week should have been Tawfic Abdel-Jabbar’s 20th birthday. He should be alive today, spending time with his family and pursuing his dream of becoming an engineer with NASA. Instead, his life was tragically cut short when he was murdered by an illegal Israeli settler — making Tawfic one of nine American citizens killed by Israeli forces or settlers since 2022.

On January 19, 2024, Tawfic, a Palestinian-American from Gretna, Louisiana, was driving along Highway 60 near Al-Mazra'a ash-Sharqiya with a friend to find a place to barbecue when a barrage of bullets struck his vehicle. One of those bullets struck Tawfic in the head, killing him at just 17 years old.

Nearly three years later, Tawfic’s family is still waiting for justice. Despite repeated pleas from his father, Hafeth, neither the U.S. nor Israel has publicly identified Tawfic’s killer or taken credible steps toward accountability. The lack of urgency to pursue justice for murdered Palestinians and Palestinian Americans alike highlights how little the U.S. values Palestinian lives.

Rather than use its significant leverage over Israel to enforce accountability, the U.S. continues to defer to Israel to investigate its own human rights abuses. From Shireen Abu Akleh, Aysenur Eygi, to Rachel Corrie, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated that they are both incapable and unwilling to credibly investigate their crimes against American citizens.

“Successive U.S. administrations, including the current Trump administration, have maintained a shameful pattern of shielding Israel from accountability for its war crimes against Americans. From Palestinian Americans killed in the occupied West Bank, to the deadly 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, Israel has repeatedly faced no meaningful consequence for harming American citizens. This impunity is enabled by a U.S. government that too often acts as Israel’s defender rather than imposing accountability. Israel should not be placed above U.S. law and must be held accountable for its actions,” says AMP Executive Director, Dr. Osama Abu Irshaid.

American Muslims for Palestine calls on the U.S. government to conduct an independent investigation, publicly identify his killers, and impose severe consequences on Israel for enabling state-backed settler violence which culminated in Tawfic’s murder.

Justice for Palestinians and American citizens cannot depend on where they are killed or whether their killer is Israeli. Tawfic’s life mattered. Until the U.S. imposes real consequences on Israel, Palestinians will continue being murdered without accountability, and their families will be left fighting for justice that is never delivered.