by He loved playing basketball with his friends. He dreamed of studying business administration to help in his family’s stores. He liked to take care of his younger siblings and was “very polite, very respectful, very intelligent,” according to the president of his mosque. Then, suddenly, a shot to the head ended it all.
A Palestinian-American teenager was killed in a burst of gunfire in the occupied West Bank on Friday. The US State Department confirmed the murder without naming the victim, but the teenager’s family identified him as 17-year-old Tawfic Abdel Jabbar. Details of Tawfic’s death were unclear, but Israeli police have said the killing involved an off-duty police officer. and an Israeli civilian, and that they were investigating the incident.
Tawfic was born to Palestinian parents and raised in the suburbs of New Orleans. Her grandfather had come to the United States “seeking the American dream,” said Sherean Murad, assistant principal at Gretna Muslim Academy, who taught tawfic civics when he was in the 11th grade.
Tawfic and his family had temporarily moved to the West Bank in May to connect with relatives; He hoped to improve his Arabic while there and planned to return to the United States to attend college.
News of his death left friends and family in Louisiana in disbelief.
“We are furious as a community because it doesn’t make sense,” Murad said.
Tawfic’s second cousin, Mohammad Abdelwahhab, a physician’s assistant in New Orleans, was still trying to process the news Saturday.
“It was a shock,” said Abdelwahhab, 21. He added: “This is a shock to the entire family, the community and anyone else with a heart who knows him.”
“He’s very young,” Abdelwahhab said, adding, “He was about to celebrate his graduation and finish and he was going to continue with his goals.”
On Saturday, large crowds of friends and family gathered to mourn. During the day, an open house was held at Tawfic’s uncle’s house, where children and women shared memories of the teenager over cups of strong coffee, dates and plates of yellow rice and lamb. In the backyard, men young and old gathered to eat and celebrate Tawfic’s life.
Tawfik Abdeljabar, 23, a close cousin with the same name but a different spelling, said he and Tawfic had felt like twins. “We joked about who had the best name. I would say K was better and he would say C,” Abdeljabar said.
Another cousin, Zarifa Abdeljabar, 22, recalled memories of the two of them in the West Bank, specifically when they would go out for iced coffee and enjoy the peace of the mountains.
Because Tawfic died in a religious conflict, he is considered a martyr, Abdeljabar said. “A warrior of God,” he called him.
In the evening, a vigil was held for the men of Masjid Omar, the mosque in Harvey, Louisiana, that Tawfic had attended. Hundreds of people were there, and many of them were wearing the Palestinian kaffiyeh scarf.
In an interview with The New York Times, Nabil Abukhader, president of Masjid Omar, urged the Biden administration to do more to “fight for our rights as Americans.”
“It is important that we protect our children from this cycle of killings,” he said.
Some family members missed Saturday’s gatherings, including two of Tawfic’s uncles and his older brother, who flew to the West Bank as soon as they heard the news.
One of her cousins was in deep mourning when she went into labor on Friday and gave birth to a baby boy.
She called it Tawfic, with a C.
Gaya Gupta, Roni Caryn Rabin, Rami Nazzal and Anushka Patil contributed with reports.
