Senate Republicans and Democrat John Fetterman blocked a measure ordering the State Department to probe nine American deaths in the West Bank that Democrats blame on Israelis.

The U.S. Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Chris Van Hollen that would have required the State Department to deliver a report to Congress within 30 days on listed incidents involving U.S. citizens in the West Bank. The measure failed 47-51.

Mediaite reported that of the 51 Republicans who voted, 50 opposed the amendment. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone Republican yes. Every Democratic senator except Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania backed it.

Van Hollen framed the vote as a fight for accountability. Republicans treated it as a one-sided demand aimed at Israel. Fetterman again refused to march with his party.

Van Hollen demanded a 30-day State Department report

The Maryland Democrat’s amendment rested on a long string of “whereas” clauses. It named at least nine U.S. citizens it said had been killed since January 2022 by Israeli settlers or Israeli security forces in the West Bank.

The text cast protecting Americans abroad as a core duty of the U.S. government. It also charged the Netanyahu government with a lack of accountability and said the United States had been unable to secure justice in the listed cases. Those are the amendment’s claims, not independent court findings laid out in the vote coverage.

If adopted, the State Department would have had no more than 30 days to submit the report to Congress. It never got that far.

Forty-seven yes votes were not enough

Van Hollen took to social media after the roll call. He cast the result as progress even in defeat.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen posted:

"Tonight, 47 Senators supported my resolution to get accountability for the 9 Americans killed on the West Bank & for Palestinians who face injustices daily. That’s more support than we’ve ever had in this fight," "Republicans blocked us, but we won’t stop until we get justice."

The public record of the vote is plain. Nearly the entire Republican conference said no. Fetterman did not join the Democratic yes column. Paul crossed the other way.

That split fits a longer pattern in which Fetterman has broken with Democrats on national security and foreign policy fights, including when Fetterman stood alone among Democrats against a bid to curb Trump’s Iran military authority.

Amendment text listed nine names and hard dates

The measure’s recitals ran from early 2022 through 2026 and offered specific descriptions of each case as Van Hollen’s side presented them.

In January 2022, the text said, 78-year-old U.S. citizen Omar Assad was stopped at a checkpoint in Jiljilya, pulled from his car by Israeli soldiers, left bound, gagged, and blindfolded, and died of a stress-induced heart attack.

In May 2022, it said Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head and killed near the Jenin refugee camp by Israeli security forces while wearing a vest that marked her as press.

In January 2024, 17-year-old American Tawfic Abdel Jabbar was shot in the head and killed while driving east of Ramallah, the amendment said, reportedly by an Israeli settler, an off-duty Israeli police officer, and an Israel Defense Forces soldier.

In February 2024, another 17-year-old American, Mohammad Ahmad Alkhdour, was shot twice in the head while driving near Biddu, reportedly by Israeli forces, per the text.

In September 2024, 26-year-old American Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, raised in Seattle, was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier from 200 meters, the amendment stated.

In April 2025, 14-year-old Amer Mohammad Saada Rabee of New Jersey was shot and killed at the entrance to Turmus Ayya by Israeli security forces, with reports in the text suggesting he was hit 11 times by two different guns.

In July 2025, 20-year-old American Sayfollah Kamel Musallet of Florida, visiting family, was beaten to death by Israeli settlers during an attack on Sinjil, the amendment said. Eyewitness accounts cited in the text reported that settlers and Israeli forces blocked ambulance access for more than two hours.

On July 15, 2025, Ambassador Mike Huckabee called Musallet’s killing a “criminal and terrorist act” and said “there must be accountability,” according to the amendment language.

In August 2025, 40-year-old Palestinian-American father of five Khamis Ayyad died of smoke inhalation after settlers set homes and cars on fire in Silwad, the text stated. In February 2026, 19-year-old American Nasrallah Abu Siyam, born in Philadelphia, was shot and killed in Mukhmas near Ramallah by settlers during an attack on Palestinian farmers, per the recital. In August 2026, 82-year-old Palestinian American Khamis Rabee Jabara was hospitalized after Israeli soldiers used a flashbang against him in Turmusayya and confiscated bystander footage, the amendment added.

Several of those descriptions use “reportedly.” The Senate vote coverage did not supply completed U.S. or Israeli case outcomes for each name. The amendment asked for a State Department report. It did not establish criminal verdicts on the floor.

Fetterman again left Democrats short

Party-line pressure was not enough to move him. Coverage of the roll call gave no on-record explanation from Fetterman for withholding his vote from the Democratic column.

His break will not shock readers who have watched him distance himself from progressive foreign-policy demands. He has called himself a lifelong Republican in a slip while dodging questions about becoming a 51st Republican vote, and he has kept insisting he will not switch parties even as frustration builds on the left.

Democrats have already turned on him in public after earlier crosses, including when he showed up in GOP spaces and talked cooperation with Trump on steel. The West Bank amendment is another data point in that rift, not a one-off surprise.

For Republicans, the no votes lined up with a broader refusal to accept Van Hollen’s framing as the basis for a forced State Department deadline aimed at Israel. Paul’s yes stood alone in the conference.

What the measure did, and did not, settle

Americans killed abroad deserve serious attention from their government. That principle appears in the amendment’s own opening line. The fight on the floor was over process, scope, and whether this text was a fair instrument.

Van Hollen wanted a rapid State Department report built around his list and his accountability charge against the Netanyahu government. Senate Republicans, joined in practical effect by Fetterman, denied him the order.

The roll call does not close any of the underlying cases. It does not invent new facts about who fired which shot in Jenin, Sinjil, or Mukhmas. It records that 51 senators refused to adopt this vehicle.

Fetterman’s latest break also tracks the same lane as when Democrats turned on Fetterman after he crossed the aisle at a GOP convention and when he pledged to work with Trump on steel in full view of his party.

Paul’s vote shows the Republican side was not a total lock. The conference still supplied 50 of the 51 no votes that killed the amendment.

Van Hollen says he will keep pushing. The Senate tally says this version is done.

Protecting U.S. citizens is not a talking point for one party to weaponize against a key ally. A serious country investigates facts without rubber-stamping a one-sided indictment first.