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RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Thousands of Palestinians protested in the occupied West Bank’s major cities Sunday against the war in Gaza and in support of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

One of the largest marches took place in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority located just north of Jerusalem, with hundreds gathering at the main square, waving Palestinian flags.

Many protesters carried photos of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israel, as well as photos depicting the hunger crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where UN-backed experts have warned that a “famine is unfolding.”

“My son is in (Israel’s) Megido prison and he suffers from many things, such as the lack of medicine the lack of food,” Rula Ghanem, a Palestinian academic and writer who took part in the march, said.

She said that her son had lost 10 kilograms and suffered from scabies in jail.

The number of Palestinians jailed by Israel skyrocketed after the start of the war in Gaza, some for violent acts, but some also for posting political statements on social media, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs says.

The commission’s spokesman Thaer Shriteh said: “The international community is a partner in all this suffering, as long as it does not intervene quickly to save the Palestinian people and save the prisoners inside the prisons and detention center.”

A group of protesters dressed as skeletons and carried dolls around to symbolize the Gaza war’s dire effect on children, who are most at risk of malnutrition.

Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, which was already under blockade for 15 years before the war began.

UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of the trickle of food aid that Israel allows in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.

“We hope that our stand today will have an impact in supporting our people in Gaza and the hungry children in Gaza,” said 39-year-old Tagreed Ziada, one of the protesters at the Ramallah march.

Protests were held Sunday in other major Palestinian cities such as Nablus in the north and Hebron in the south, with many government employees receiving a day off to attend the demonstrations.

While there have been somewhat regular demonstrations against the war in Gaza, they are rarely coordinated across various cities in the West Bank.

CHICAGO: The relatives of an American Palestinian who moved with his five children and wife in 2020 to the West Bank are calling on the US to investigate the circumstances of his death.

Relatives in Chicago told Arab News that Khamis Ayyad, 40, had died of smoke inhalation on July 31 when he entered a home that was engulfed in flames to save people.

State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, who represents the southwest suburbs of Chicago in the Illinois legislature and is of Palestinian descent, met with Ayyad’s relatives.

He said the fires were started by Israeli settlers who have been rampaging through West Bank villages.

“This wasn’t random. It’s part of an ugly pattern of Israeli government-sponsored brutality from settler terrorism in the West Bank to the genocide unfolding in Gaza — enabled by US military funding and political support for Israel,” Rashid told Arab News.

“I’ve seen this violence firsthand. I was in Palestine in June 2023 when settlers invaded my family’s village in broad daylight. They killed a young man. There was no accountability, no justice.

“That lack of accountability has led to continued Israeli terrorism against Palestinians fighting for survival and liberation, including the murder of Palestinian American Khamis Ayyad.”

Rashid’s district represents a region of the southwest suburbs of Chicago called Little Palestine because of its large concentration of American Palestinians.

Relatives said the village of Silwad, where Ayyad lived, was hit with several arson fires in recent months by settlers, including homes, farmland and vehicles.

Ayyad is the second American Palestinian to be killed in July, and the fifth since the war on Gaza began in October 2023, ABC News reported.

On July 11, 2025, 20-year-old American Palestinian Sayfollah Musallet was murdered by a gang of Israeli settlers in the family’s farmlands located near Ramallah.

Israeli soldiers prevented Musallet’s family from reaching him while he was alive but wounded, relatives told Arab News.

Soldiers also prevented an ambulance from reaching him for more than two hours after the attack. He died as paramedics were placing him in the ambulance to take him to a nearby hospital.

Musallet is the cousin of Muhammad Ibrahim, who was arrested in the middle of the night by 20 soldiers wearing black masks in February and has been detained in the notorious Megiddo Prison without access to his parents or legal representation.

Ibrahim has not been charged with a crime, his family told Arab News, adding that he is suffering from an illness caused by the unsanitary conditions at the prison.

“Who will speak up for these Americans?” a relative of Ayyad asked.