American Citizens Killed by Israeli Forces

Rachel Corrie was twenty-three, from Olympia, Washington. Furkan Doğan was nineteen, born in the United States. Shireen Abu Akleh was fifty-one, a correspondent for Al Jazeera for a quarter of a century and a household name across the Arab world.

All three were American citizens. All three were killed by Israeli forces. Nobody has been held criminally accountable for any of them.

What this article does not claim

It is worth being straight about something before going further, because the temptation to flatten these three deaths into one story is strong and the evidence does not support it.

The three cases are not equivalent. Corrie died during a home demolition, the bulldozer driver said he never saw her, and whether that was recklessness or accident is genuinely contested. Doğan died during a violent boarding at sea, and a United Nations inquiry found he and five others were shot at close range in a manner it described as execution-style, which is a far stronger finding. Abu Akleh was shot in the head while standing in a marked press vest away from the fighting, and while multiple independent investigations concluded Israeli fire killed her, the question of whether she was deliberately targeted remains disputed.

So this article does not say all three were murdered. It says three American citizens were killed by the forces of a close ally, that the strength of the evidence differs case by case, and that in every case the United States declined to pursue accountability. That last part is the same in all three, and it is the documented subject here.

Rachel Corrie, 2003

Corrie was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. On March 16, 2003, in Rafah in southern Gaza, she stood in front of an Israeli military bulldozer during a home demolition operation and was crushed and killed.

The Israeli military investigated and called it an accident, saying the driver had not seen her. Her family disputed that, alleged recklessness, and sued in Israeli court for a symbolic one dollar and an acknowledgment of responsibility. In 2012 a court in Haifa ruled against them. Judge Oded Gershon described the death as a regrettable accident, held the state not liable because it occurred in what he characterized as a wartime situation, and said Corrie had not moved away from the area “as any thinking person would have done.” Israel’s Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in 2015.

In Washington, senior officials initially demanded a full investigation and dozens of members of Congress called for an independent American inquiry. The United States criticized the Israeli investigation for not being thorough, credible and transparent. It never conducted one of its own.

Furkan Doğan, 2010

Doğan was a dual American-Turkish citizen aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged vessel in a flotilla attempting to break the naval blockade of Gaza. On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos boarded the ship in international waters. Nine people aboard were killed.

Doğan was shot five times: in the leg, the foot, the back, and twice in the head. The United Nations inquiry into the raid concluded that he and five others had been shot in a manner consistent with execution-style killings at close range, and found that Doğan had been shot in the face while “lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious state for some time.”

An American teenager was killed by an allied military in international waters, and a UN body characterized it in those terms. The United States never opened its own investigation. Contemporaneous reporting noted the American reaction was more muted than the response across Europe and the Middle East.

Shireen Abu Akleh, 2022

On May 11, 2022, Abu Akleh was covering an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was wearing a blue flak jacket marked PRESS and standing with other journalists, away from active fighting, when she was shot in the head.

The evidentiary record here is unusually thick. Independent investigations by CNN, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, the UN human rights office, and the Israeli and Palestinian rights organizations B’Tselem and Al-Haq all concluded she was killed by Israeli military fire. CNN’s analysis found evidence suggesting she may have been deliberately targeted.

The Israeli military investigated briefly and said in September 2022 that it could not unequivocally determine where the gunfire came from, while acknowledging a high possibility that she had been hit accidentally by Israeli fire. It declined to open a criminal investigation. The U.S. State Department said Israeli gunfire was likely responsible, while calling a forensic examination of the bullet inconclusive.

Fifty-seven members of Congress wrote to the Secretary of State and the FBI Director urging American involvement. The FBI did eventually open an investigation. Four years on it has produced nothing, and the Committee to Protect Journalists has publicly pressed the Justice Department and the Bureau for any progress at all, calling the stagnation inconsistent with protecting American citizens abroad.

In 2025 a documentary named the Israeli soldier it said fired the shot and alleged the Biden administration had softened its internal findings to protect an ally. Those are the film’s allegations, they have not been established, and this archive does not repeat the name. Al Jazeera has referred the case to the International Criminal Court.

The consistent part

Israel’s position across all three was consistent: each death was investigated internally and found to be accidental or justified, and in no case was any member of its forces criminally prosecuted.

The American position was consistent in a different way. Express concern. Call for an investigation, or note that one would be desirable. Defer to the Israeli process, or open an American one and let it go quiet. Never reach a conclusion, never impose a consequence.

These three are also not the whole set. The human rights organization DAWN has tracked at least thirteen American citizens killed by Israeli forces or settlers since 2003 and has asked Congress and the State Department for a comprehensive investigation of those deaths. As of 2026 there has not been one.

Why it matters

When an American citizen is killed abroad, the ordinary expectation is that the machinery engages. The embassy leans on the host government, the FBI sends people, the State Department makes it a standing item, and the family gets the weight of American insistence behind them. That expectation is not naive. It is what citizenship is understood to buy.

An activist was crushed under a bulldozer. A nineteen-year-old was shot five times, twice in the head, and a UN inquiry called it execution-style. A journalist in a marked press vest was shot in the head, and six independent investigations concluded who fired.

In each case Washington expressed concern, accepted or deferred to the investigation conducted by the force responsible, and let it rest. It is the same response the families of the thirty-four men killed on the USS Liberty received in 1967, and the same one they are still receiving.

The pattern does not require anyone to have intended these particular deaths. It only requires that, once they happened, the accountability an American passport is supposed to guarantee did not arrive. Across twenty-three years and three administrations of both parties, it has not arrived yet.

Sources

• CBS News / Associated Press reporting on the 2012 Haifa court ruling in the Corrie case; Fox News, “Israel’s Supreme Court Rejects Appeal in Death of American Activist Rachel Corrie,” 2015
• Christian Science Monitor, “Israeli Raid on Gaza Freedom Flotilla Killed US Citizen Furkan Dogan,” June 3, 2010
• UN Human Rights Council report on the Mavi Marmara flotilla raid, 2010 — the “execution-style” finding
• CNN, “Shireen Abu Akleh: Israeli Military Admits Journalist Likely Killed by Israeli Fire,” September 5, 2022, and CNN’s investigation finding evidence of possible deliberate targeting
• Al Jazeera, “US Urges Probe, Accountability for Shireen Abu Akleh’s Killing,” May 2022 — the 57-member congressional letter and State Department statements
• Committee to Protect Journalists, statements on the 2025 documentary and on the stalled FBI investigation, 2025–2026
• NPR, “New Documentary Charges Killing of Palestinian American Journalist Was Intentional,” May 8, 2025
• OHCHR, UN experts’ statement on the anniversary of Abu Akleh’s killing, May 2023
• DAWN and Arab Center DC, tracking of U.S. citizens killed by Israeli forces since 2003