US President demands Israel investigate murder of American citizen Saifullah Masalt

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has called on Israel to probe the killing of 20-year-old American citizen Sayfollah Musallet, who was beaten to death by settlers in the occupied West Bank, calling the incident a “terrorist act”.

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, said on Tuesday that he asked Israel to “aggressively investigate” the killing of the Florida-born Musallet, who was visiting family when he was attacked in the Palestinian town of Sinjil.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” Huckabee wrote in a social media post. “Saif was just 20 yrs old.”

Huckabee’s strongly worded post marks a rare critical stance towards Israel by the US envoy, a staunch Israel supporter, who has previously said, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”

But the US ambassador’s statement stops short of backing the Musallet family’s demand for Washington to launch its own probe into the killing.

Critics say Israel rarely holds its settlers or soldiers accountable for abuses against Palestinians. Musallet was the ninth US citizen to be killed by Israel since 2022. None of the previous cases has led to criminal charges.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project said Israel should not be trusted to “investigate the extremist settlers it enables at every turn”, renewing calls for an independent US probe.