Relatives mourn for Palestinian Americans who were beaten to death by Israeli settlers: “He had everyone loved” | Florida

WHen Fatmah Muhammad thinks of her younger cousin Sayfollah Musalet, lovingly known as Saif. Gaming With the same effort he brought to everything else.

She does the dessert from scratch and sometimes shipping it from California, where the 43-year-old Baker lives so that the family heritage can grow nationwide. Saif sold the Palestinian dessert in its Little Ece cream shop in the Amish style, in which international treats were available from the world.

The inventive 20-year-old recorded videos for her and ensured that every part of the Knafeh was flawless, each layer positioned exactly correctly. “Make sure you make it perfect,” she annoyed him from 2,000 miles away. He would go beyond anything, she says.

Now, less than a year after the opening of this shop with dreams of expansion, Saif is dead – from Israeli settlers on the farm of his family on the occupied West Bank, while visiting relatives. His death smashed a family and a community that demanded answers.

Zayed Kadur, a close family friend, called Saif “Uncle”, ranks with all the paths that made his nephew from Love Special. “He was just a very rare soul,” he says. “He was all felt important. He made everyone loved.”

Saif's oldest uncle Hesam Musalet said that the effects of his nephew on the closest people to him were noticeable. “He would go into a room and the room would light up,” he says. “If people sat down, he would shake his hand when he came in, recognized her. Old, young – it was all the same for him.”

Customers in the ice business said to Fatmah that Saif, if someone was briefly in cash, would cover their tab without feeling letting.

“He really made everyone feel like a family,” recalls Fatmah. “No matter how much breed, no matter in the background, no matter in old age. That was just the one he was.”

Saif was born in Port Charlotte, Florida, and was the oldest of four children. His parents had moved the family to Palestine for his basic and high school years before returning to the USA to live and work. A few years later, the ice cream business was realized almost by chance.

Saif and his cousins noticed that an ice cream business near the café of her uncle at the University of South Florida was struggling. When the owner mentioned that he could continue from it, Saif immediately called his family.

“The business when he got it was a failing business,” says Hesam. “But he went in there, he turned it. He had a passion for it … People would just come back for his customer service. He was phenomenal.”

For Saif, this summer trip to the West Justice Billen Al-Hawa near Jerusalem Routine-a chance to connect to the extended family before returning to his business and the life he built in Florida before his 21st birthday. His father had exchanged places with him and took his layers in the ice business so that Saif could hang around with the family.

The Saif family visited generations of connections between Palestine and America. His uncle Hesam, who was born in the United States, explained how his father – Saif's grandfather – came into USA in the early 1960s. Be The grandfather first came to New York in the early 20th century and spent a few years in the United States before returning to West Bank.

“There are so many people in our city who are American citizens,” says Hesam about their village. “Most of their children and grandchildren are born here. So go back and forth, summer vacation. Everyone is going for summer vacation, weddings. It's just typical.”

But on the day he was killed, Saif was on the farm of his family in Baten al-Hawa in the region B of the West Bank of the West Bank under Palestinian administrative control, but also under Israeli security control. According to witnesses, settlers had come into the country, olive trees chipped and burned plants.

“It was a Friday. People will go out and sit around with friends,” says Hesam. “And this is our country. If there is no one, the Israeli settlers would only like to come and simply set up a tent so that they can say that it basically steals this part of this country.”

The confrontation escalated and Saif was beaten with clubs and bats. His friend Mohammed Nael Hijaz was the first to reach him. “He didn't move when I arrived there and he could hardly breathe,” said Hijaz. “It was time to save him.”

However, the ambulances were blocked by Israeli armed forces for three hours, his family said in a statement. During this time, Saif remained consciously, snatching after air and vomit, in the arms of his younger brother. Another young man, the 23-year-old Razek Hussein al -halabi, was shot and bleed to death in the same attack. When the ambulances finally reached them, they were also attacked by settlers. Saif was declared dead before reaching the hospital.

The Israeli military claimed the conflict after stones were thrown into Israelis and said it was checking the incident.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the area since the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7, 2023 and at least 9,000 were injured. Since then, Israeli settlers who try to empty the West Bank of the Palestinians are increasingly encouraged and dozens of communities are displaced by violent intimidation campaigns.

The family devastation is reinforced by what they see as an indifference of the US government. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, published on Tuesday on social media that Israel has to “examine the murder aggressively” and that “it must be responsible for this criminal and terrorist law”. However, the family is aware that the view of the arrest of violent settlers is rare. During his first days of office, the Trump government raised the sanctions of the bid era against Israeli settler groups, which were accused of attacking the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Nevertheless, the family calls on the Foreign Ministry to carry out its own investigation into Saif's murder.

Saif's death is not the only nightmare of the family: Saif's 15-year-old cousin, an American citizen named Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim, has been in the Megiddo prison for four and a half months. His family says that he had accused stones of what they deny. It is believed that he has lost almost £ 30 and developed a severe skin infection while he is detained without family visits or phone calls permitted. “We have a saying in Arabic,” says Kadur. “Two hits on her head will hurt. And our family cannot take any further blow.”

The family's office of the Florida Congressman, the Republican Mike Haridopolos, confirmed to the Guardian that he had been contacted via Ibrahim.

“We shared the information we received from his family with the Foreign Ministry and were informed that the US message is pursuing standard procedures in Israel,” said his office. The Israeli defense staff did not respond to an inquiry to the charges against Ibrahim and instead asked questions to the Israel prison service. The Guardian contacted this agency to comment on Ibrahim's current condition.

For those who knew Saif, the tragedy lies not only in how it died, but in everything he will never do. Before his 21st birthday, Saif told his father that he was ready to find a woman and to settle down.

“He wasn't just a number,” says Fatmah. “He was a friend of all, a cousin, a son, a grandson. I just don't want him to be forgotten.”