TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A 20-year-old U.S. citizen, Sayfollah Musallet, affectionately known as Saif, was brutally beaten to death by a group of Israeli settlers in the occupied village of Sinjil in the West Bank on July 11, 2025. According to his family, he was an elder brother, a son, and a young man just starting his life.
According to his cousin and business partner, Fatmah Muhammad, he had a great passion for food. Saif always prepared soft knafeh cakes, which he sold at the ice cream shop he managed in Tampa. "Just in the way he plated my dessert, he made it look so good," said Muhammad, a 43-year-old pastry chef. "I even told him he did a better job than me."
Florida Native
Born and raised in Port Charlotte, a coastal community in southern Florida, Saif had deep ties to his foreign roots, as reported by Al Jazeera.
As a teenager, he preferred to stay and study in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. His two brothers and sisters also lived there. His parents had a house near Sinjil, hoping he would better connect with the culture and the language.
However, after finishing high school, Saif wanted to return to the U.S. to pursue entrepreneurship. Last year, he, his father, and his cousin opened a dessert shop in Tampa, Florida. The shop was named Ice Screamin.
But the ice cream shop was just the beginning. Saif had a vision to expand and double it with many people. "This at 20, when most kids are playing video games," said Muhammad.
Tragic Fate
Saif traveled to the West Bank in early June for the summer vacation and Eid al-Adha. He was supposed to return home this week. However, what should have been a short family visit ended in tragedy. Savage Israeli settlers surrounded and fatally beat him, as reported by Anadolu.
According to his uncle, Saif and his friends were enjoying leisure time outside the house, baking and drinking coffee, on Friday afternoon after Friday prayers, when the illegal settlers suddenly came.
His uncle, Hesam, described the attack as a violent assault by what he called a gang, with around 30 settlers attacking Saif and others. "And then these people – it’s like a gang – just go in there and start grabbing people and beating them. When 30 people come to beat on one, what can you do?"
During the violent confrontation, the settlers blocked an ambulance and paramedics from reaching Saif for over three hours, as he lay injured. The ambulance's windshield was shattered by settlers throwing stones, and Israeli soldiers reportedly used tear gas on Palestinians, obstructing medical access. After the settlers left, Saif's younger brother managed to get him into the ambulance, but he died before reaching the hospital.
Hesam also expressed his disappointment that Saif's American citizenship made no difference: "They don’t care you’re American. Because they have the green light to do what they want."
Israeli authorities claimed that the attack in Sinjil started with stone-throwing and "a violent clash... between Palestinian residents and Israeli civilians," a claim refuted by Sayfollah's family and witnesses.
No Investigations Ever
Analysis by Al Jazeera also found that Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least nine U.S. citizens since 2022, including veteran reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
However, none of these deaths have led to criminal charges, and Washington usually relies on Israel to conduct its investigations, which ultimately result in no prosecutions.
So far, U.S. President Donald Trump has not directly commented on Sayfollah's murder. When asked in the Oval Office about the fatal beating incident, Trump redirected the question to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Representing Trump, Rubio responded that the U.S. is committed to protecting all American citizens wherever they are in the world, especially in cases where they are killed or face unfair death. The authority is currently gathering further information, he said.
US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said on Tuesday that he had urged Israeli authorities to "aggressively investigate" Sayfollah's murder. "There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act. Saif was just 20 years old," said Huckabee in X, as quoted by Anadolu.
This is a very surprising sentiment from Huckabee, who has been a vocal supporter of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and has even denied the existence of the Palestinian nation.
However, there has been no announcement of an independent investigation led by the U.S. According to Israeli media reports, three Israeli settlers, including a military member, were arrested after the attack that killed Sayfollah, but they were all eventually released.
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