Tawfic Abdel Jabbar was a 17-year-old American citizen born and raised in Gretna, Louisiana. His family moved to the United States nearly 30 years ago, where his father and uncle opened a Louisiana chain of stores that sell sports shoes. Tawfic’s parents, Hafeth and Mona, are Palestinian-American. In May 2023, Tawfic moved with his family to their ancestral home in Al-Mazra’a Ash-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank to connect with relatives and his heritage and to improve his Arabic. Tawfic was a senior in high school and had planned to return to the United States for college to become an aeronautical engineer. His dream was to work at NASA.

On January 19, 2024, Tawfic was driving down a dirt road close to his village in the West Bank with his friend, Mohammed Salameh. The two were searching for a place to grill and have a picnic when a barrage of bullets suddenly hit the car. According to Salameh, two bullets came in the back windshield and broke the glass. The fourth bullet hit Tawfic in the head, causing him to lose control of the car and slump onto the steering wheel as the car flipped over multiple times. At least 10 bullets struck the car, which was seen by The Associated Press after Israeli investigators examined it. According to witnesses, Israeli forces surrounded the car and prevented people from reaching Tawfic for about 15 minutes, after which an ambulance took him to a hospital in Ramallah. Tawfic was pronounced dead upon arrival. According to the hospital’s preliminary medical report, his cause of death was a gunshot wound to the right side of his head. The bullet that killed him was still lodged in his brain.

According to a U.S. official, as of February 2024, U.S. authorities were closely watching the Israeli investigations and were ready to escalate the cases with the Israeli government if the investigations fell short. In May 2025, Hafeth contacted Waleed Neiroukh of the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, who responded that he had no updates on any investigation. As of the date of this request, Tawfic’s family has received no other updates from the U.S. government regarding the status of any investigation.