West Bank & Jerusalem
Israeli soldiers raised their flag over a Palestinian-American's Turmus Ayya home
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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An American flag came down, and an Israeli flag went up. For roughly twenty-four hours at the end of July, the home of an American citizen in Turmus Ayya, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, flew a flag that was not his own.
Israeli soldiers who had ordered his family out at gunpoint replaced the American flag over the house with an Israeli one, converted the residence into a military position, and left only after the United States Embassy intervened.
The house belongs to Dr. Hassan Said Shukri, a neurologist based in Syracuse, New York, who had returned to his hometown days earlier to spend time with his family. It is the same home US Congressman Ro Khanna visited less than three weeks before, on a West Bank trip in which he met American citizens who say their own government has abandoned them.
One hour to leave#
On Monday, July 27, soldiers raided the Shukri home. In Dr. Shukri's account to Palestinian media, they pointed their weapons at his elderly parents and gave the family one hour to pack and leave. Asked how long the family would be barred from its own home, the soldiers refused to answer.
The soldiers cited unspecified "security reasons". The military purpose, according to Israeli media reporting, was a lookout and forward staging point for raids — the practice the army has long run under what it called the "Straw Widow" procedure, commandeering civilian homes for operations. A second Turmus Ayya family was forced out in the same operation.
Footage of the Israeli flag over the Shukri residence spread fast on Palestinian social media, and the images became the symbol of a question Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank ask with growing urgency: what, exactly, does their citizenship protect?
The embassy moves — after the fact#
Israel's public broadcaster Kan reported that US Embassy officials, angered by the takeover of an American citizen's home, applied heavy pressure on Israeli security officials — and shortly afterward the soldiers were ordered out immediately. The withdrawal came on Tuesday, July 28: after the family had been displaced, after the flag had been raised, after the images had circulated worldwide.
Asked about the incident, the embassy answered with one boilerplate sentence about the State Department placing the highest importance on the safety of US citizens abroad. The army did not comment at the time of the Kan report.
Independent field reporting from the village adds the telling detail. Family members say that when they first turned to the US Embassy in Jerusalem, they were told to file a report. Journalists who sought comment from the embassy say they received none. In a statement circulated by the journalist Jasper Nathaniel, Dr. Shukri appealed by name to his own New York senators and governor for help recovering the house.
It was not the filing of a report that returned the family to their home. It was public exposure.
The sequence rewards attention: media coverage, viral footage and the political embarrassment of an Israeli flag over an American household produced results within hours. For families without cameras and congressional visitors, the outcome is usually different.
A village of Americans under pressure#
Turmus Ayya is one of the most American towns in Palestine. Thousands of its residents hold US passports, and in a normal year the village fills each summer with families flying in from the United States. This year many stayed away, and July explains why. The seizure came amid a wider squeeze on Turmus Ayya and neighbouring Sinjil, together home to thousands of US citizens.
The Sinjil fence. Since 2024, Israeli authorities have confiscated land between the two villages and ringed Sinjil with a metal fence — some five metres high, running more than two kilometres, its steel gates controlling every road in and out. Residents describe the town as a prison. The seizures came by military order under security pretexts, cutting both villages off from Route 60, as an investigation by +972 Magazine documented.
The killing of Saif Musallet. In July 2025, near Sinjil, settlers beat 20-year-old Palestinian-American Sayfollah Musallet to death while the army blocked paramedics from reaching him for hours. On the first anniversary of his killing this July, settlers attacked journalists covering the memorial.
The Khanna visit. On July 9, Congressman Khanna travelled to Turmus Ayya to meet American citizens, including at the Shukri home. On the same trip, armed settlers detained him — an incident he has demanded be prosecuted. Eighteen days after his visit, the home he stood in was a military outpost.
Settler violence with impunity. Residents still carry June 2023, when hundreds of armed settlers rampaged through the town, torching homes and cars while residents — many of them US citizens — waited three-quarters of an hour for the army. Recent weeks brought a renewed surge across the Ramallah-area villages, and Sinjil residents now mount night watches over their homes.
Citizenship that stops at the checkpoint#
The Turmus Ayya seizure crystallises a pattern Palestinian-Americans have documented for years: US citizenship offers little practical protection in the occupied West Bank until an incident becomes politically visible. In Turmus Ayya, American citizens were ordered at gunpoint out of American-owned homes by a military their own taxes help fund — while their embassy's first response was a suggestion to file paperwork.
The eventual intervention proves the leverage exists. Washington asked, and within hours the soldiers were gone. The question the residents of Turmus Ayya and Sinjil are asking is why that leverage moves only after the fact, only under public pressure, and only in the cases the cameras catch.
Dr. Shukri's family is back in their home. The fence around Sinjil is still standing. The gates still lock. And thousands of American citizens in two Palestinian villages are still waiting for their government to act before the next raid, not after it.
