American teen was killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. The U.S. has said little about it.

TURMUS AYYA, West Bank — To his family, Amer Rabee was just a 14-year-old American boy picking almonds with two friends.

TURMUS AYYA, West Bank — To his family, Amer Rabee was just a 14-year-old American boy picking almonds with two friends.

But to the Israeli soldiers who gunned him down on Sunday night, the trio were “three terrorists” who were “endangering civilians” by throwing rocks at cars. The hail of bullets the soldiers fired over the next several minutes succeeded in “eliminating one terrorist and hitting two additional terrorists,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Tuesday.

Now, as the village of Turmus Ayya, which has a large number of U.S. citizens, mourns the loss of one of its children — whose family insists had neither violent tendencies nor political allegiances — it’s grappling with a deeper question: why President Donald Trump and the U.S. government have said so little about the killing of one of its citizens.

Amer was “an American citizen,” Mohammed Rabee, 28, said Thursday about his cousin, who grew up in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. “He thought his passport came with freedom and American protection, but it clearly didn’t.”

“Our president hasn’t shed a light on this,” he added.