Father of American teen killed in West Bank by Israeli fire rails against US support for Israel ( apnews.com )
The father of an American teen killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank railed against Washington’s military support for Israel, as hundreds of mourners buried the 17-year-old in the family’s ancestral Palestinian village Saturday.
Joe Abdel Qaki, said that Ajaq and a friend were having a barbecue in a village field when he was shot by Israeli fire, once in the head and once in the chest.
Abdel Qaki said he arrived at the field shortly after the shooting and helped transport Ajaq to an ambulance. He said Israeli forces briefly detained him and other Palestinians at the scene, asking for their IDs before the men could get to Ajaq. He said Ajaq died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Israeli police said they received a report Friday regarding a “firearm discharge, ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian.” Police did not identify who fired the shot, though it said the shooting targeted people “purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities along Highway 60,” the main north-south thoroughfare in the West Bank.
Asked about the shooting, U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby said that officials at the White House were “seriously concerned about these reports.” “The information is scant at this time. We don’t have perfect context about exactly what happened here,” Kirby said. “We’re going to be in constant touch with counterparts in the region to — to get more information.”
