In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, Reuters improved coverage in English and Arabic regarding a slain Hamas activist whose widow met with Ambassador Mike Huckabee in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya earlier this month.
The Sept. 5 article, “US ambassador visits Palestinian town amid rise in West Bank settler violence,” erroneously reported on two points: “Hadeel Jabara, a Palestinian American mother of two young children whose husband, Omar, a U.S. citizen, was killed by settlers in 2023.”
First, according to the anti-settlement watch group B’Tselem, Omar Jabara Qattin was not killed by settlers. B’Tselem reports:
‘Omar Hisham ‘Abdallah Jbarah
24 year old resident of Turmusaya, Ramallah and al-Bira District, killed on June 21, 2023, in Turmusaya, Ramallah and al-Bira District, live ammunition. Additional information: Shot in the chest by Border Police officers when he and other youths clashed with settlers who were rampaging in the village.
A few days after the deadly incident, the Times of Israel reported that the circumstances behind’s Jbarah’s death were unclear:
US officials and European dignitaries visited the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya Friday to show solidarity with residents attacked by settlers in a deadly rampage earlier this week following a terror attack nearby.
Omar Jabara Qattin, a 27-year-old Palestinian killed during the settler attack, had permanent residency status in the US and members of his family have American citizenship, two US officials told The Times of Israel. . . .
The circumstances around Qattin’s death were unclear. It came as troops entering the town to disperse the armed settlers there clashed with Palestinians throwing rocks and launching firecrackers. [Emphases added.]
Notably, the anti-Israel DAWN site does not count Omar Jabara Qattin among the Americans it says were killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in Palestinian territories. That’s because, contrary to the Reuters repot, Jabara Qattin was not a U.S. citizen, but had permanent residency status.
Reuters has corrected both points in English and Arabic, amending the sentence in question to state:
Among those who met Huckabee on Saturday was Hadeel Jabara, a Palestinian American mother of two young children whose husband, Omar, a U.S. legal permanent resident, was killed when he and others clashed with settlers “who were rampaging” Turmus Ayya in June 2023, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.B’Tselem said Omar was shot in the chest by Israeli border police officers at the scene.
(This Sept 5 story has been corrected to say that the Palestinian woman’s deceased husband was a US permanent resident, not a citizen, and that he was killed by border police officers during a settler attack, not by settlers directly in paragraphs 1, 17 and 18.)