US senator demands public hearing into ‘cover-up’ of killings of Americans in West Bank

US Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Friday called for a Senate hearing into an alleged “cover-up” by the US Embassy in Israel on information about the killings of Americans in the occupied West Bank.

“The American embassy in Israel is hiding information about the killing of American citizens,” Van Hollen said in a video message on US social media company X.

The Democratic senator said he and more than 30 colleagues wrote to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in March about the killing of Nasrallah Abu Siyam, a 19-year-old Palestinian-American from Philadelphia, who is the ninth US citizen killed in the West Bank by illegal Israeli occupiers or Israeli security forces during the last four years.

“Ambassador Huckabee and his point person have been covering up this information to protect the (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu government, to protect the government of Israel,” he said. “I’m demanding that the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hold a hearing and investigate this cover-up,” he added, referring to Republican Sen. Jim Risch.

Van Hollen said the administration of the last US president, Joe Biden, “completely failed to get justice and accountability” for Americans killed in the West Bank, and that the administration of current President Donald Trump is now “covering up for the Israeli government.”

“If we don’t stand up for American citizens killed, it just shows we can’t stand up for anybody who is the victim of unjust killings, whether on the West Bank or anywhere else in the world,” he said.

His remarks came after the New York Times reported Thursday, citing US officials and documents, that David Milstein, a senior adviser to Huckabee, suppressed an embassy report on the status of investigations into the nine killings.

Huckabee denied the report, telling the daily that he would “categorically refute” its elements.