Israeli Forces Detain 2 American Brothers In Raid Of Gaza Home, Family Says

Israeli forces conducted an overnight raid in the Gaza Strip and detained two American brothers, whose whereabouts are now unknown, their cousin told HuffPost.

Borak and Hashem Alagha, ages 18 and 20, were sleeping when Israeli forces raided their home in western Khan Younis, south of Gaza City, at around 5 a.m. Thursday, said cousin Yasmeen Elagha.

Soldiers allegedly assaulted the men’s mother and 14-year-old brother before blindfolding and tying up the women and children there. Soldiers then trashed their home and slashed vehicle tires before leaving with the Alagha brothers, their Canadian father, and an uncle who is mentally disabled, Elagha said . Soldiers also detained other members of her extended family in nearby homes, she added.

Elagha, who lives in Chicago, got a phone call from her aunt — the mother of the two detained men — late Thursday night.

“Tell the Americans to save my sons,” the men’s mother said through tears, according to Elagha.

“It is the worst news,” Elagha told HuffPost. “It is the thing that I have been dreading for months at this point. I have been waiting for the U.S. to act so that it doesn’t happen.”

The Alagha brothers are the second and third U.S. citizens said to be detained by Israeli forces this week. A Palestinian American woman, Samaher Esmail, was reportedly pulled from her bed and taken by Israeli soldiers who raided her home in the occupied West Bank. Esmail’s family has not been able to locate her since the incident. And e arlier this month in the West Bank, an American teen named Tawfic Hafeth Abdeljabbar was shot and killed .

The U.S. State Department is aware of Esmail’s detention and the reporting on the Alagha brothers, department spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a