The family of a United States citizen who was killed in a settler attack in the occupied West Bank is calling on the administration of President Donald Trump to open its own investigation into the incident.Relatives of Khamis Ayyad, 40, who died in the town of Silwad, north of Ramallah, on Thursday, confirmed on Friday that he was an American citizen and called for justice in the case.Ayyad — a father of five and a former Chicago resident — was the second US citizen to be killed in the West Bank in July. Earlier that month, Israeli settlers beat 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet to death in Sinjil, a town that neighbours Silwad.Standing alongside Ayyad’s relatives, William Asfour, the operations coordinator for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), described the killing as “murder”.“We demand a full investigation from the Department of Justice,” Asfour said. “An American citizen was killed. Where’s the accountability?”According to Mahmoud Issa, the slain 40-year-old’s cousin, settlers torched cars outside Ayyad’s home around dawn on Thursday.Ayyad woke up to put out the fire, but then the Israeli army showed up at the scene and started firing tear gas in his direction.The family believes that Ayyad died from inhaling tear gas and smoke from the burning vehicles.‘How many more?’Settler attacks against Palestinian communities in the West Bank, which US officials have described as “terrorism”, have been escalating for months, particularly sinc …
