Palestinians mourn 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 on 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.

Ajaq was born and raised in Gretna, Louisiana, near New Orleans, relatives said. His parents brought him and his four siblings to the village of Al Mazra’a Al Sharqiya last year so they could reconnect with Palestinian culture.

"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.

It was the latest fatal shooting in the West Bank, where nearly 370 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza more than three months ago. During Saturday's funeral, the teen's father criticised the long-standing US support for Israel. "They are killer machines,” he said of Israeli forces. "They are using our tax dollars in the US to support the weapons to kill our own children.”

"The American society does not know the true story,” he said. "Come here on the ground and see what’s going on. ... How many fathers and mothers have to say goodbye to their children? How many more?” The circumstances of the shooting remained unclear.

The White House said on 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 for comment, an Israeli army spokesman said they were "checking this event."

Agencies