A Palestinian-American teenager killed in the West Bank is being mourned.

Relatives of a Palestinian-American teenager who was fatally shot in the occupied West Bank demanded Saturday that authorities find the killer of the 17-year-old, who was hit by a barrage of gunfire, his cousin said, as the two met were sitting. go for a picnic near their village.

The death of the teenager, identified by family as Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, came at a time when tensions between Israel and the United States have increased. The State Department confirmed that an American was killed in the West Bank on Friday without releasing identification and called on Israel to provide more information about the death.

Without naming the teenager or confirming his death, Israeli police said in a statement Saturday that they were investigating the shooting. Police said an Israeli citizen and an off-duty police officer shot at “individuals allegedly involved in throwing stones.”

The Israeli army is investigating whether a soldier was also involved in the shooting, a military spokesman said. The military and police did not respond to requests for comment beyond their initial statements.

A distant cousin, Mohammad Ejak, 16, said Tawfic was shot as he drove to an olive grove owned by the family, about a 15-minute drive from their village of Al-Mazra'a ash Sharqiyeh, near Ramallah.

“We didn't throw stones at anyone's car, and we didn't even get out of our own car before the shots were fired at us,” said a visibly shaken Mohammad, who attended the funeral. He said he did not know where the gunshots came from and ducked under the dashboard when he heard the gunfire.

Tawfic was born to Palestinian parents and grew up in a suburb of New Orleans, where he attended the Muslim Academy Gretna Islamic School. The family, which has four other children, decided to return to the occupied West Bank about a year and a half ago when Tawfic was 16, relatives said.

“Where is my son's killer?” asked Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, Tawfic's father, during the funeral. “He is an American citizen who was shot in cold blood, and as an American he must be protected.”

Nabil Abukhader, director of the Muslim Academy in Gretna, La., and head of the local mosque the family attended, said the teenager had hoped to improve his Arabic while in the West Bank.

He described him as a quiet, polite and “very respectful” teenager who helped his father with his shoe and clothing stores and often took his siblings to school. The young man planned to study business at the University of New Orleans to help his father's businesses grow, said Mr. Abukhader, who spoke to The New York Times from New Orleans.

The West Bank is increasingly on edge as violence and Israeli military attacks have spiraled since Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7. More than 340 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers and civilians in the area since October 7, according to the United Nations. At least eight people were killed in a two-day attack by the Israeli army this week.

John Kirby, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, said at a State Department briefing on Friday that the United States had expressed its condolences to the family members of the American who was killed, without directly naming them. and that they “worked to understand the consequences of the murder.” circumstances of the incident.”

“We are deeply concerned by these reports,” Mr Kirby said. “The information is scarce at the moment. We don't have perfect context about what exactly happened here.”

But he added: “We will be in constant contact with colleagues in the region to get more information.”

Anushka Patil And Gaya Gupta reporting contributed.