Daughter of elderly US-Palestinian man who died after Israeli detention demands US probe

The daughter of Omar Assad, a Palestinian-American man who died in Israeli detention in the occupied West Bank earlier this year has called for a thorough US investigation into his death.

In an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Wednesday, Hala Hamad described her father as someone who tried to "lead a good and simple life".

Returning from a night of playing cards with his cousins in his home village of Jiljilya on 12 January, Assad, 78, was dragged out from his car, handcuffed, blindfolded and gagged by Israeli forces. The soldiers left him to die at an abandoned house.

A post-mortem found he died of a "stress-induced heart attack caused by the circumstances of his detention by Israeli soldiers".

Assad’s death made international headlines, and the US Department of State issued a statement regarding the matter, saying that they were "deeply concerned about the circumstances of [his] death".

The Israeli military carried out a rare investigation, and acknowledged the soldiers' "moral failure and poor decision-making".

One soldier was reprimanded, while two others were removed from their posts.

Hamad said that given more than 300 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military in 2021, the Israeli investigation and arrests likely only occurred due to her father’s American nationality.

She said that despite the anomaly, the Department of State’s response to the killings of Americans and Palestinians at the hands of Israeli soldiers is inadequate.

Hamad said she expects the US government to one day conduct an independent and thorough investigation into her father's death.

She said she does not believe Israel will ever charge her father’s killers with their crime.