A west suburban Naperville native and 2021 University of Illinois graduate was identified as an Israeli sniper who shot an apparently unarmed 19-year-old Palestinian in the head in Gaza, according to an investigation published this week by The Guardian.
Daniel Raab was part of an Israeli military sniper unit unofficially known as the “ghost” squad that was found to have shot six family members — killing four — in one day in November 2023 during the war in Gaza.
Raab said he and another sniper were responsible for three of the killings, The Guardian reported. His admission came in an interview in which he believed he would remain anonymous. Raab was approached by a Hebrew speaker claiming he was interested in writing about the sniper unit’s experiences and to honor fallen soldiers, according to Palestinian journalist and activist Younis Tirawi, who led the team that conducted the interview.
Tirawi said the decision to publish excerpts of the off-the-record interview despite promising anonymity was in the public interest given the scale of civilian killings in Gaza.
The Chicago chapter of the Council on American‑Islamic Relations demanded that the U.S. Justice Department open a criminal investigation of Raab, saying his conduct in Gaza “constitutes evidence of war crimes.”
Raab couldn’t be reached for comment.
The war in Gaza has raged on for nearly two years after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. Israel has since killed more than 64,000 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. World food authorities have declared a famine in parts of Gaza amid Israel’s near total blockade on food and medical supplies.
In a video snippet of the interview, Raab called his shooting of Salem Doghmosh, 19, “my first elimination.” He conceded that he knew Doghmosh appeared to be unarmed but said he shot him because Doghmosh was trying to retrieve the body of his older brother Mohammed, 26, who had already been shot by a fellow member of Raab’s unit.
“It’s hard for me to understand why he [did that], and it also doesn’t really interest me,” Raab said of Doghmosh trying to take his brother’s remains, according to The Guardian. “I mean, what was so important about that corpse?”
Raab’s sniper unit shot the brothers’ father, Montasser Doghmosh, 51, as he rushed to his sons’ aid, The Guardian reported Raab said. Their cousin was then shot trying to attend to the father. Montasser and his sons died of their wounds. The cousin and another relative were shot that day but survived.
The Guardian’s investigation found that Raab and the other sniper were atop a six-story building nearly 440 yards away from the men.
Also that same day, another cousin was killed by the sniper unit while checking if his home had been damaged in Israeli bombings.
“They’re thinking, ‘Oh, I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon and all that, but they were wrong,” Raab said. “That’s what you have snipers for.”
Only snippets of Raab’s interview were posted by Tirawi on his X account, not the full interview. The conversation is in Hebrew, and the Chicago Sun-Times did not independently verify Raab’s quotes.
The Guardian worked on the five-month investigation into the sniper shootings of members of the Doghmosh family with Paper Trail Media, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism and German news outlets ZDF and Der Spiegel.
CAIR-Chicago, the group that demanded a Justice Department investigation, said the federal War Crimes Act gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over American citizens “who commit grave breaches of the laws of war.”
“Given that the alleged perpetrator attended the University of Illinois and has American citizenship, CAIR‑Chicago insists the Department of Justice cannot ignore these atrocities merely because they occurred abroad,” Ahmed Rehab, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.
The Justice Department didn’t respond to questions. Neither did the Israeli consulate in Chicago.
The Israeli military said in a statement to the Sun-Times that it “operates in strict accordance with its rules of engagement and international law, taking feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.
“Reports and complaints regarding the violation of international law by the IDF are transferred to the relevant authorities responsible for examining exceptional incidents that occurred during the war,” the military said.
Raab was a varsity basketball player at Naperville Central High School.
He graduated from U. of I. in 2021 with a degree in molecular and cellular biology, according to The Daily Illini student newspaper. On campus, he was president of Illini Students Supporting Israel and a student leader of the Jewish organization Chabad.
The Daily Illini previously quoted Raab when he was a senior in a story about allegations of campus antisemitism.
Leaders with Illini Students Supporting Israel and Chabad didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A nonprofit registered by Benjamin Raab, who appears to be Daniel’s father, to his suburban Deerfield home address raised more than $300,000 for the sniper unit in 2023.
In its IRS filings, “Friends of Paratrooper Sniper Unit 202” is described as “an organization dedicated to catering to the additional requirements and the overall welfare of soldiers serving in a specific military unit.”
Melissa Mendelson, Daniel’s mother, is also listed as a director of the nonprofit.
In an October 2023 Facebook post, she wrote that the raised funds would “go directly to his unit, to purchase essential equipment.”
Benjamin Raab and Mendelson didn’t respond to requests for comment.