Michigan community remembers American killed in Lebanon by Israeli strike | Israel attacks Lebanon News
The Lebanese-American community in Michigan is mourning after one of their own was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
A large crowd of people who knew Kamel Jawad, a father of four, 56, attended his funeral on Sunday at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan in the US.
Jawad, a Lebanese-American remembered by locals for his generosity, was 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 live near the main hospital in Nabatieh to help the elderly, the disabled, the injured, and those who had no money to escape,” Jawad’s daughter Nadine said in a statement.
“His answer to political disputes was always simple: ‘I stand with the oppressed’.”
Speaking at a funeral service in Dearborn, Jawad’s son Ali said he was proud of his father’s legacy of helping the needy, including founding a non-profit organization in the US.
“The work he was doing is more important than any interview or anything we could say or any statement we could make,” said Ali.
Stories are well shared of Kamel’s kindness and life of service to others. For family privacy, those statements will not be shared here.
Here is his son Ali, who I have known since primary school, told 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 that many looked to as a mentor.
“He gave back to the community. He was there for everyone. He raised an unbelievable family,” Ayoub said of Jawad.
‘How many more are you going to die?’
After initially doubting that Jawad was a US citizen, the US State Department issued a statement on Friday confirming his citizenship and expressing “dismay” at his death.
“It is a moral and strategic obligation for Israel to take all precautions to minimize civilian casualties. Any loss of human life is dangerous,” the statement said
But those words offered little comfort to many Arab Americans who feel their country has done little to protect its citizens in Lebanon amid a barrage of US-sponsored bombings.
While about 6,000 Americans in Lebanon contacted the embassy for help to leave, the government helped only about 600 people to leave, according to a State Department spokesperson speaking on October 5.
“Only politics and racism can explain the Biden administration’s despicable disregard for Americans killed by the Israeli government,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement about Jawad’s death.
“By illegally arming the Israeli government, justifying its indiscriminate attacks on the Lebanese people, and refusing to evacuate Americans from Lebanon, President Biden is directly responsible for Kamel’s murder. [Jawad].”
Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who represents the state of Michigan where Jawad was from, said the United States government is “abandoning American citizens” in Lebanon.
“As the congressman of a beautiful divided state, I should not beg our government to help its citizens,” Tlaib wrote in an Instagram post on October 2.
“We have lost one American who was the father of four children. How many more must die before our country stops sending more American bombs and funding this madness?”
Jawad is not the first American citizen to be killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023, when Israel began a year-long offensive in Gaza that sparked a war in the West Bank and Lebanon.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a dual citizen of the United States 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 his killing, which Israeli authorities described as an “accident”, but said it would not launch an independent investigation.
