DAWN Launches "American Body Count: U.S. Citizens Killed by Israel in Palestine" Tracker
(Washington, DC, October 14, 2025) – The U.S. Congress should immediately introduce a resolution under Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) to demand a comprehensive State Department investigation and report on the killings of thirteen American citizens by Israel Defense Forces and Israeli paramilitary settler forces since 2003, said DAWN, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), and A New Policy in a letter delivered to Congressional offices today.
As detailed in DAWN's new tracker, American Body Count: U.S. Citizens Killed by Israel in Palestine, the Israeli government has systematically failed over the past two decades to hold anyone criminally accountable for these killings.
Under Section 502B(c) of the FAA, Congress may compel the State Department to provide detailed information on the human rights record of any country eligible to receive U.S. military assistance, as a mechanism to ensure enforcement of the FAA's prohibition on assistance to countries consistently abusing human rights. The State Department must respond within thirty days or face an automatic suspension of security assistance to Israel.
"Congress should force the State Department to investigate and report on these shocking killings of Americans by Israeli forces, for which not a single person has been held accountable," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of DAWN. "When Israeli forces kill thirteen Americans, including a 78-year-old grandfather, teenage boys, a celebrated journalist, and aid workers, over two decades and not one person is held accountable, that's not a series of tragic accidents—that's systematic impunity."
DAWN's tracker details the personal background and circumstances regarding the thirteen Americans killed by Israeli forces between 2003 and 2025: Rachel Corrie (2003), Furkan Doğan (2010), Orwa Hammad (2014), Mahmoud Shaalan (2016), Omar Assad (2022), Shireen Abu Akleh (2022), Tawfiq Ajaq (2024), Mohammad Khdour (2024), Jacob Flickinger (2024), Aysenur Ezgi Eygi (2024), Amer Rabee (2025), Sayfollah Musallat (2025), and Khamis Ayyad (2025).
Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act
Section 502B(c) of the FAA provides Congress with clear authority to demand comprehensive human rights reports from the State Department regarding any country eligible to receive U.S. security assistance. Any member of Congress can introduce a resolution under Section 502B(c). If a Senator introduces the resolution in the Senate, after ten days in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, any Senator can move to discharge the resolution in the full Senate chamber through a motion to discharge for a floor vote under privileged procedures that prevent filibusters and require only a simple majority vote. If a member of Congress introduces the resolution in the House of Representatives, it has to follow the regular process and it has no special privileges.
If the State Department fails to provide the mandated report within 30 days, security assistance to the country in question is automatically suspended until the report is transmitted. Once the report is issued, Congress gains access to expedited legislative procedures to condition, restrict, halt, or continue security assistance based on the State Department's findings. Such a mechanism can provide an important tool to hold both the Israeli government and the State Department accountable for breaching the law's prohibition on U.S. security assistance to human rights abusers.
"It is widely acknowledged within the U.S. Government that there is a double-standard when it comes to the application of U.S. law to Israel's security assistance," said Josh Paul, co-founder and director of A New Policy. "But the notion that there should be a double-standard when it comes to accountability for the murder of American citizens – and that shielding another country from accountability should exceed our government's fundamental responsibility to stand up for the rights and safety of our citizens – is not just unconscionable, it is absurd. In the absence of proper executive action, it falls upon our elected representatives to stand up for 'we, the people,' and the resolution proposed today by DAWN, FCNL, and A New Policy is a vital step in doing so."
To date, Congress has never relied on such a resolution to demand information from the State Department about Israel's record of systematic and widespread human rights abuses. While the annual State Department Human Rights Report has typically offered a review of Israeli abuses, such reports are typically cursory and incomplete, and have never provided any detailed review of Israeli accountability for American deaths by Israeli security or settler forces; this year's report issued under Secretary of State Marco Rubio goes to great lengths to avoid a meaningful and comprehensive review of Israel's human rights record.
Such a resolution can also serve as powerful diplomatic leverage even before any vote, as demonstrated in 2019 when Senators Todd Young and Chris Murphy introduced a 502B(c) resolution on Saudi Arabia, helping secure the installation of humanitarian infrastructure in Yemen without coming to a floor vote. Similarly, Senators Chris Murphy and Mike Lee used a 502B resolution in 2023 to pressure the Biden Administration to continue pushing for a ceasefire between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi government in Yemen.
Despite the prohibitions of the FAA on the provision of security assistance to countries engaged in human rights abuses and the decades of detailed investigations and reporting on such abuses by international and domestic organizations, the State Department has never enforced the law to prohibit transfers of weapons to abusive governments. It has not even enforced, with respect to Israel, the narrower provisions of the FAA under the so-called "Leahy Law" amendments that prohibit U.S. security assistance to individual units of foreign military forces credibly found to have committed gross violations of human rights without satisfactory remediation. Although there is ample documentation identifying the units of the IDF implicated in the deaths of 11 American citizens, the State Department has never sanctioned them, fueling further attacks on Americans by Israeli forces without consequence.
"Congress has both the authority and the moral obligation to act when American citizens are killed abroad with impunity," said Hassan El-Tayyab, FCNL's legislative director for Middle East Policy. "For too long, the killings of U.S. citizens by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza—including Shireen Abu Akleh, Aysenur Eygi, and Rachel Corrie—have gone unanswered, eroding trust in our government's commitment to protect its own people. Senators should invoke 502B now and force a floor vote—not only to honor these lives, but to affirm that American lives are not expendable and that accountability matters."
A resolution under 502B(c) could require the State Department to investigate and provide comprehensive information regarding: the circumstances of each American's death; identification of any Israeli security forces responsible; an assessment of whether U.S. security assistance or defense articles were used in the killings; a review of whether responsible units were vetted under the Leahy Law; the steps taken by the U.S. Government and Israel to ensure accountability; and whether the killings constitute gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.
"American families who have lost loved ones to Israeli violence deserve more than condolences and empty promises of investigation from their government. They deserve the full weight of congressional oversight demanding answers and accountability," said Raed Jarrar, DAWN's advocacy director. "Americans present in Israel and Palestine, particularly in the West Bank where the vast majority of these killings have occurred, should know that the U.S. government takes their safety seriously."
In January 2024, Senator Bernie Sanders invoked Section 502B(c) demanding that the State Department report on Israel's conduct in Gaza, securing eleven votes in favor, 31 votes shy of the votes needed to move the resolution out of committee. Senator Brian Schatz issued a statement that he would have voted yes had he not missed the vote. This invocation of 502B(c) established important precedent for using this oversight mechanism regarding Israeli human rights practices. The proposed resolution on the killing of American citizens could narrowly focus on demanding accountability for the deaths of U.S. nationals, an issue that transcends partisan divisions and speaks to the fundamental duty of the government to protect its citizens.
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DAWN is a U.S. nonprofit organization working to reform U.S. policy in the Middle East and North Africa and hold abusers accountable.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is a nonpartisan Quaker lobby in the public interest. FCNL works with a nationwide network of tens of thousands of people to advocate for social and economic justice, peace, and good government in Washington.
