Michigan community remembers American killed in Lebanon by Israeli strike

Kamel Jawad was killed October 1 while volunteering in his hometown of Nabatieh, said his family.

Michigan’s Lebanese-American community is mourning after one of their own was killed in an Israeli air attack in Lebanon.

A large crowd of people who knew Kamel Jawad, a 56-year-old father of four, attended his funeral ceremony on Sunday at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan in the US.

Jawad, a Lebanese-American remembered by locals for his generosity, had been killed on October 1 while volunteering in his hometown of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, according to his family.

“In his last days, he chose to stay near the main hospital in Nabatieh to help the elderly, disabled, injured, and those who simply couldn’t financially afford to flee,” said Jawad’s daughter Nadine in a statement.

“His response to political conflict was always simple: ‘I stand with the oppressed’.”

Speaking at his funeral service in Dearborn, Jawad’s son Ali said he was proud of his father’s legacy of helping those in need, including by starting a nonprofit in the US.

“The work that he was doing is more important than any interview or anything that we can say or any statement that we could put out,” said Ali.

Stories were beautifully shared about Kamel’s kindness and life of serving others. In respect to the family’s privacy, those statements won’t be shared here.

Here’s what his son Ali, who I’ve known since elementary school, had to say about what happened. pic.twitter.com/l8BUrYZKnD

— Sarah Rahal (@SarahRahal_) October 6, 2024

Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told Al Jazeera last week that Jawad was a cornerstone of Michigan’s Arab-American community who many looked to as a mentor.

“He gave back to the community. He was there for everybody. He raised an incredible family,” Ayoub said of Jawad.

‘How many more have to die?’

After initially casting doubt on whether Jawad was a US citizen, the US State Department released a statement on Friday confirming his citizenship and expressing “alarm” about his death.

“It is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy,” said the statement

But those words offered little solace to many Arab Americans who feel their country has done little to protect its citizens in Lebanon while US-funded bombs rain down.

While some 6,000 Americans in Lebanon have contacted the embassy for help in getting out, the government has only helped some 600 people depart, according to a State Department spokesperson speaking on October 5.

“Only politics and racism could explain the Biden administration’s disgusting pattern of indifference to Americans of color killed by the Israeli government,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a statement on the death of Jawad.

“By illegally arming the Israeli government, justifying its indiscriminate attacks on Lebanese civilians, and refusing to evacuate Americans from Lebanon, President Biden bears direct responsibility for the murder of Kamel [Jawad].”

Palestinian-American US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who represents the Michigan district where Jawad was from, said the United States government was effectively “abandoning American citizens” in Lebanon.

“As a congresswoman to a beautiful diverse district, I shouldn’t have to beg our own government to help its own citizens,” Tlaib wrote in an Instagram post on October 2. “

“We have already lost one American who was the father of four. How many more have to die before our country stops sending more US bombs and funding this madness?”

Jawad is not the first US citizen to be killed by Israel’s military since October 7, 2023, when Israel began a year-long offensive in Gaza that spiralled into conflict in the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a dual citizen of the US and Turkey, was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while protesting settlement expansion near the West Bank city of Nablus in September.

The US said it was “disturbed” by her killing, which Israeli authorities described as an “accident”, but said it would not carry out an independent probe.