Community mourns death of Tampa man killed while in West Bank

(WFTS) Many people came together Sunday evening to pay their respects for Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old who was killed while visiting family members overseas, as our sister station reports.

He is a local Tampa man who ran an Ice cream shop on Bruce B. Downs called "Ice Screamin."

He is known to his family and friends as Saif, and as a “kind, hard-working and deeply-respected young man.”

In a public statement, his family said they are going to miss the “kind-hard-working and deeply-respected young man,” he was.

"Everybody knew him," said Ferase Ibrahim, Saif's uncle. "Nice kid, smiling all the time, working hard."

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But on Friday, his life was cut short when his family said he was “brutally beaten to death” on the West Bank by Israeli settlers.

"It's not just having a family member die, it's having a family member, a son, a nephew, a cousin beat to death by illegal Israeli settlers because you're protecting your land," said Hiba Rahim, the Deptuty Executive Director of CAIR-Florida. "That's something that all of us hold very close our land, our property, our home."

CAIR stands for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Florida chapter is the state’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.

His death brought men and women from across the state to the Islamic Community of Tampa Mosque in Temple Terrace for a special prayer service.

"Devastated," said Ibrahim. "I didn’t believe it, it felt like a dream."

Ibrahim said he traveled three hours to come to Tampa.

"We’re all shocked," said Ibrahim. "I mean he was young. He went there for vacation, to see his mom, his family, his grandmother, and when we heard the news, we just felt it as a community."

Saif’s family sent a statement saying they are devastated and this is an “unimaginable nightmare.”

His family said Saif was protecting his land with two other family members when Israeli settlers surrounded Saif for over three hours, preventing paramedics from providing life-saving aid. They said he died on the way to the hospital.

Now, the family and others in the community are calling for accountability.

"Just because it's Israel that does not give them immunity to kill our citizens," said Rahim. "The community here is devastated, devastated by Sayfollah’s brutal murder overseas. And we want our public officials to make a stance and to publicly condemn the murder of a local Tampa citizen, and we want the US government to arrest the perpetrators, to arrest the murderers.

Jonathan Ellis is the Chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council, and offers his condolences to the family.

"I think on behalf of everybody in the Jewish community and probably within the Tampa Bay Area, whenever somebody's child dies, your your heart just goes out to them regardless of the facts or circumstances surrounding to that," said Ellis.

He said he trusts the Israeli government to do a thorough investigation.

"I will tell you from my experience with the Israeli government that they will prosecute their citizens when their citizens do something illegal or unprovoked or something along those lines," said Ellis. "What you're not seeing in the Jewish community, you're not seeing cheering on something like that or celebration. I think everybody recognizes this is a tragedy."

CAIR Florida is set to hold a press conference on Monday at its Tampa headquarters (8076 N 56th St, Tampa, FL) to call for accountability and urgent U.S. government action. Multiple family members are expected to be there as well.