A Louisiana teen traveled to the West Bank to learn about his roots. He was shot

AL-MAZRA’A AL-SHARQIYA, West Bank — Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, 17, was born and raised in Louisiana, in a city called Gretna across the Mississippi River from New Orleans and surrounded by the delta’s swampland and bayous.

It’s a long way from the mountains of the occupied West Bank, but when Tawfic arrived in May, he was excited to properly explore the landscape of the village where his dad grew up, and to learn more about his roots as a Palestinian American.

“He loved the outdoors,” his father, Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, told NBC News — and Tawfic was eager to spend more time in Al-Mazra’a Al-Sharqiya, about 10 miles northeast of Ramallah, and to enjoy all the reasons Palestinians “love their homeland,” he said.

He never imagined he would end up burying his son on that very same land.

“Tawfic is gone,” said Abdel Jabbar, 40. “He was killed in cold blood.”

Tawfic’s family says he was a victim of mounting settler violence in the territory, which has been on the rise since the war began.

As an American, Abdel Jabbar said, he would have expected the U.S. to seek justice for his son. But he says the Biden administration’s support of Israel, including with weapons, and what he sees as a tepid response from the White House to Tawfic’s death make him doubt that his government will act in his son’s interest.

‘They took the best of us’

In video from his funeral shared by his father, Tawfic’s head is wrapped in a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf. There are cuts and bruises on his face. Flowers surround him as his family says their final farewells.

“They all say they took the best of us,” Abdel Jabbar said, describing his son as a lovely and outgoing teen who was “very loved.”

He hoped to study engineering in college — and was considering pursuing his degree in the West Bank.

Abdel Jabbar said Tawfic had gone out for a picnic with friends on Friday when he was shot by a person witnesses told Abdel Jabbar appeared to be an Israeli settler, who initially opened fire, followed by someone wearing a uniform for the Israel Defense Forces.

The IDF said it had received a report regarding an “off-duty police officer and a civilian who fired toward a Palestinian individual suspected of hurling rocks” in the area. It confirmed an IDF soldier was also in the area and said it was investigating a claim that the soldier fired at the Palestinian.

The Israel Police said it was also investigating the incident. Asked to confirm whether the civilian was an Israeli settler, the IDF referred NBC News to the Israel Police, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the civilian’s identity.

Abdel Jabbar dismissed the suggestion his son might have been “hurling rocks” as a “lie.” But, he said, even if rocks were thrown in the area, “so what?”

“If they were throwing rocks 150 meters to the street, what is it going to do to a tank? Or to a jeep? Or to a car full of soldiers? You’re gonna shoot the car 10 times because a guy threw a rock?” he said.

Speaking with NBC News shortly after his son’s funeral, Abdel Jabbar described racing to the scene when he heard his son had been shot. He found him bleeding in a truck with two gunshot wounds — one to the head and another in the chest. “I took him with my bare hands out of the car,” he said.

The grieving father said people in IDF uniforms were already on the scene when he arrived — and he said they “pointed their guns at us, warning, ‘We will shoot you,’” if he and others did not leave the area.

“We didn’t care. We went to the car and we grabbed him,” he said.

The IDF did not immediately respond to a question about that specific claim.

Blood could be seen on the shattered windshield and seats of the truck Tawfic was shot in. Shards of glass were strewn along the terrain where his family says the vehicle rolled over before coming to a halt over a section of Highway 60.

The incident comes as human rights groups have documented a rise in settler violence in the occupied West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began.

Since Oct. 7, at the start of the war in Gaza, 344 Palestinians, including 88 children, have been killed by security forces and settlers across the West Bank, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.