The Israeli military killed American citizen Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad in a bombing on Lebanon on Tuesday, in the latest instance of Israel killing an American amid its U.S.-sponsored massacres.
Jawad hailed from Dearborn, Michigan, and was visiting his hometown of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon when he was killed by an Israeli airstrike, according to his family. Jawad was there taking care of his mother and, in recent days, had stayed near a major hospital to help those in need who couldn’t flee Israel’s attacks. Israeli forces have been intensely bombing Nabatieh this week, and on Thursday, issued an evacuation order for the city.
In a powerful statement from his family, Jawad’s daughter, Nadine Kamel Jawad, said that her father was one of many people risking their lives to help people across the Middle East who have become victims of Israel’s aggression.
“We are honored by my father’s sacrifice. In his last days, he chose to stay near the main hospital in Nabatieh to help the elderly, disabled, injured, and those who simply couldn’t financially afford to flee. He served as their guardian, provided them with food, mattresses, and other comforts, and anonymously paid off their debts,” the statement says.
“I would often ask him if he was scared, and he repeatedly told me that we should not be scared because he is doing what he loves the most: helping others live in the land he loved the most,” Nadine Jawad noted. “However, my father never viewed himself as a savior. His response to political conflict was always simple: ‘I stand with the oppressed.’”
Jawad’s funeral will be held on Sunday in Dearborn, at a local mosque.
Like U.S. officials have done to many other Americans killed by the Israeli military, the State Department downplayed Jawad’s death on Wednesday. Though the White House put out a statement supposedly mourning his death and the “deaths of many civilians in Lebanon,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller denied that Jawad was a U.S. citizen in a press conference.
“It’s our understanding that it was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen. But we obviously offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” said Miller.
However, Jawad’s family says he was a citizen, as does the office of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D), of whom Jawad was a constituent. Further, it is telling that Miller would question Jawad’s citizenship at all, as it appears to be a way to question the significance of his death — which came as the U.S. is refusing to evacuate Americans from Lebanon, despite Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on the country.
Tlaib condemned Miller’s callous remarks. “I saw the article quoting [the State Department] claiming he wasn’t an American. All this while the family is mourning and having services for Hajj Kamel in our community this week,” she said on social media.
The lawmaker added that she personally had to call the State Department on Thursday to compel them to evacuate one of her constituents, Jad Haidar, a veteran of the U.S. Marines, from Lebanon.
“Lance Corporal Haidar is among 148 residents we have been desperately trying to help evacuate from Lebanon. One of my constituents was already killed in an Israeli airstrike,” Tlaib said. “Our government’s lack of urgency to get Americans out of Lebanon is shameful.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned the Biden administration for enabling Jawad’s killing.
“By illegally arming the Israeli government, justifying its indiscriminate attacks on Lebanese civilians, and refusing to evacuate Americans from Lebanon, President Biden bears direct responsibility for the murder of Kamel,” said CAIR.
“Only politics and racism could explain the Biden administration’s disgusting pattern of indifference to Americans of color killed by the Israeli government, from journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to Aysenur Ezgi Eygi to Kamel Jawad,” the group went on. “Every member of the Biden administration’s foreign policy team should be ashamed of themselves.”