HARVEY, La. — A 17-year-old Palestinian-American from Gretna was killed in the West Bank region of Palestine Friday. Multiple sources report Tawfic Abdeljabbar was shot by an Israeli militant or civilian. Loved ones gathered at the Omar Mosque in Harvey Saturday night to mourn him and express their anger over his death.
“To wake up to a call like that, I was in disbelief,” Abdeljabbar’s uncle Mohammed Abdeljabbar told WWL Louisiana.
Abdeljabbar was born and raised in Gretna and was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Palestine. His uncle described him as “a regular New Orleanian,” who loved the Saints, beignets, and Drago’s charbroiled oysters.
He called the teen “outgoing, funny, and goofy, with a big heart.” Talat Salem, a classmate of Abdeljabbar, said he “could always bring your mood up,” adding the news of his friend’s death “destroyed him.”
Abdeljabbar attended Muslim Academy and was set to graduate this year. His plan was to go to UNO to study engineering. “He was smart, he did good in school,” said his cousin Mohammad Abdelwahhab, who heard the news right after he clocked into work Friday. “Nobody knows how to react,” he said.
In May of 2023, Abdeljabbar’s family temporarily moved to the West Bank “to show him our heritage, our roots,” said his uncle. In October, the war between Israel and Hamas began. He was killed Jan. 19.
The circumstances of Abdeljabbar’s death are still murky. The nonprofit Louisiana for Palestine said in a release Friday evening, that Abdeljabbar was riding in a car when he was shot by “Israeli forces.”
Israeli police told the Associated Press that it received a report of a “firearm discharge, ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian.” They said the shooting targeted people “purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities.”
Abdeljabbar’s family attended Omar Mosque in Harvey. Saturday night, it held a special prayer service, and then the mourners filed into an adjacent room where several people gave impassioned speeches to the crowd.
Many expressed anger. “He’s an American citizen and being killed by our tax money,” said Nabil Abukahder, president of the Westbank Muslim Association and principal of Tawfic’s school, referring to the longtime aid the U.S. has provided Israel. “Every congressman should be talking about this, every senator should be talking about this. I have not heard one statement yet,” added Palestinian advocate Mo Abdel.
The same day, more than 6,000 miles away, Abdeljabbar’s body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag and carried through the streets. He was laid to rest in his family’s ancestral village.
At the service, the Associated Press spoke with one of the teen’s relatives, Joe Abdel Qaki, who said Abdeljabbar and a friend were in a field barbecuing when Abdeljabbar was shot, once in the head and once in the chest. Qaki said he went to the field and helped get Abdeljabbar into an ambulance. He died before he arrived at the hospital.
Police said they would investigate the killing, though according to the AP, “investigations of those involved in fatal shootings of Palestinians by Israel’s police and military have rarely yielded speedy results, and indictments are uncommon.”
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.