The US State Department said on Tuesday it was aware of the killing by Israeli forces of a Palestinian American teenager in the West Bank and was seeking more information about the incident.

A State Department spokesperson made the comments to reporters when asked about the death over the weekend of US citizen Omar Mohammad Rabea, 14, and the shooting of two other teenagers.

“We are certainly aware of that dynamic,” the State Department spokesperson said. “There is an investigation that is going on. We are aware of the reports from the IDF that this was a counterterrorism act. We need to learn more about the nature of what happened on the ground.”

“We don’t have the complete picture of what was going on on the ground,” the State Department spokesperson added.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry condemned the incident as an “extra-judicial killing” by Israeli forces during a raid.

A local mayor said Rabea was shot along with two other teenagers by an Israeli settler and that the army pronounced him dead after detaining him.

The family of the teenager, who was a New Jersey native, said he was shot multiple times. Local community leaders gathered at the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, New Jersey, on Tuesday to pay tribute to him and demand justice.

Responding to the incident, Andy Kim, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, called the killing of Rabea a “tragedy,” and said that during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to the White House, President Donald Trump should have “pressed him for a full and open investigation” into his death.

Kim also mentioned Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, also a New Jersey native, saying that the captive “must be returned home” from Hamas captivity, and that Rabea “should be the last child killed in this conflict.”

Commenting on the death of Rabea, the Israel Defense Forces said it shot a “terrorist” who had endangered civilians by hurling rocks, and published a video of the incident.

Rabea is not the first American citizen killed by Israeli troops in recent months. Aysenur Eygi, a Turkish-American activist, was shot dead by the IDF in the West Bank while taking part in a protest march in September of last year.

Israel acknowledged that its troops had fatally shot Eygi shortly after she was killed, but said it was an unintentional act that occurred during a demonstration that turned into a “violent riot,” and that she in all probability was mistakenly hit by soldiers aiming at another person.

A Washington Post report later disputed the IDF’s version of events, saying that Eygi was shot over half an hour after the most intense part of the demonstration and some 20 minutes after the protesters had moved down the road, meaning she was approximately 180 meters (200 yards) away from the troops when she was killed and could not have posed a threat.

After she was killed, her family said that “her presence in our lives was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military,” and that “a US citizen, Aysenur was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed.”

The West Bank has seen a spike in violence since October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.

In the West Bank, the military has undertaken large-scale counterterrorism operations that have killed hundreds of people — the vast majority of them combatants, according to the IDF — and displaced tens of thousands.

Settler violence against Palestinians has also been on the rise. Last month, a group of some 50 Israelis attacked homes in the northern West Bank village of Duma, with three Palestinians reportedly injured as the settlers torched property and assaulted residents.

Additionally, it was reported in February that tens of thousands of Palestinians had fled Israeli military operations across the northern West Bank — allegedly the largest displacement in the territory since the Six Day War in 1967.

The IDF and the Shin Bet internal security agency noted that counterterrorism efforts will continue on order to prevent further threats.