Jerusalem ? In an Israeli hospital, Chana Nachenberg, 32, an American victim of a Palestinian suicide bombing a year ago, still lies in a coma. Her mother holds tiny mint leaves under Chana’s nose in hopes the smell might wake her.

In the Palestinian city of Ramallah, another American, Farhan Saleh, mourns a daughter shot dead by Israeli soldiers on a rainy night in March, during a major military offensive. She had to be buried in a mass grave dug out of a hospital parking lot because streets were too dangerous to conduct a proper burial.

Americans have been swept up by Israeli-Palestinian battles that began in September 2000, shortly after U.S.-brokered peace talks failed.

Thirty-two Americans have died so far and 50 others have been injured, including many who had dual Israeli-American citizenship. Most were victims of Palestinian attacks. Others died in combat as soldiers in Israel’s military. One of the dead was a Palestinian-American.

There was Koby Mandell, a 13-year-old boy from College Park, Md., who was bludgeoned to death by Palestinians while on a desert hike. Judith Greenbaum, a school teacher from Passaic, N.J., died in a suicide bombing last year.

Old, young slain

Avi Boaz, a 71-year-old Brooklyn-born architect who had befriended a Palestinian family in the town of Beit Jalla, was shot dead by Palestinian militiamen in January. Sgt. Matanya Robinson, a 21-year-old soldier and the eldest son of American immigrants from New York City, was ambushed and killed in April at a Palestinian refugee camp, along with three other American citizens in Israeli uniform.

Marla Bennett, 24, from San Diego, came to Israel on a study abroad program and was killed by a bomb at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University a month ago. Shortly before she died she wrote an e-mail to a friend: “I admit it. Israel is really scary right now. … But I still feel so strongly about being here.”

The American victims are a small fraction of nearly 2,500 people killed overall more than 1,800 on the Palestinian side and more than 600 on the Israeli side.

Still, their deaths are a reminder that the United States’ connection to the region is not only strategic, but deeply personal.

Heavy American presence

About 210,000 of the nearly 10 million people in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have American citizenship, according to U.S. officials. Of those, 120,000 live in Israel, and 90,000 in the Palestinian areas.

American leaders have long sought to broker peace here.

Israel and Washington maintain close ties; the United States gives Israel $2.8 billion in annual military and economic aid.

The Palestinian Authority also has received hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid, and thousands of Palestinians study at U.S. universities. In several West Bank villages, a majority of residents carry U.S. passports the result of a Palestinian exodus after Israel captured the area in the 1967 Mideast war.

Thousands of Palestinian-Americans returned to the West Bank to open businesses during the 1990s encouraged by the peace process and hoping to help build a Palestinian state. Now, with the economy in shambles and prospects for a state distant, many are going back to the United States.

Jamil Ekhalil, a 54-year-old father of seven who lived for years in California, says he can no longer make ends meet with his clothing store in Bethlehem.

“There is no work now. There is no money,” he said.

Palestinian militant groups have not appeared to purposely set out to kill Americans, and the United States has so far not sought to extradite or prosecute militants involved in attacks against its citizens.

In the July 31 bombing at Hebrew University, five Americans were among the nine dead the largest number of Americans killed in one attack.