‘Intimidation’: US, Turkey furious after dual citizen killed in West Bank

Washington: An American woman has been killed in the occupied West Bank, the State Department said. Two witnesses said the woman was shot in the head by Israeli forces who had opened fire.

The woman, Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group, had been attending a protest of Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita when she was shot, her colleagues said. Copies of her passport that circulated online said she was born in Turkey and the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that she was a citizen.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi of Seattle ina photo provided by her family and the International Solidarity Movement.Credit: AP

The Israel Defence Forces said it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area”. The statement said that Israeli forces in the area of Beita, in the northern West Bank, “responded with fire towards a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.”

“The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review,” it said.

Jonathan Pollak, a volunteer with ISM, said the shooting took place about 30 minutes after protesters had dispersed, at a time when there were no active clashes taking place, and as foreign volunteers, including Eygi, stood observing at a distance of about 200 metres from the Israeli military.

“There was no justification for taking that shot,” he said.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s body being transported through the Rafidia Surgical Hospital, after she was fatally shot.Credit: AP

National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that the United States was “deeply disturbed by the tragic death” of Eygi and had reached out to Israel “to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident”.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a trip to the Caribbean, said the US government is “intensely focused on getting those facts”, but held back from detailing whether there would be any consequences for the Israeli government ahead of understanding exactly what happened.

“I just want to extend my deepest condolences, the condolences of the United States government, to the family of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. We deplore this tragic loss,” he told reporters when asked what message he had for Americans who were concerned that the US government was sending military aid to the Israeli government.

“When we have more info, we’ll share it. We’ll make it available. And, as necessary, we’ll act on it,” Blinken said.

Mourners carry the bodies of Palestinian men killed during an Israeli military operation, some draped in the Palestinian and the Islamic Jihad flags, during their funeral in Jenin, West Bank, also on Friday.Credit: AP

When Pollak and his colleagues arrived in Beita on Friday, soldiers were already deployed around a site where people were set to perform Friday prayers, he said. As soon as the prayers were over, clashes began, he said. The soldiers used tear gas and live ammunition “almost immediately”. There was also “stone throwing” at the soldiers, he said.

The ISM activists retreated some distance away, down a hill, some 200 metres from where the soldiers were stationed. “We stood there for about half an hour,” he said. The soldiers took over a rooftop in the town, he said, calling it “a controlling rooftop”. Eygi was in an olive grove, according to Pollak and another ISM volunteer who spoke on condition she be identified by her first name, Mariam, for fear of retribution.

“I didn’t see her at the moment of the shooting because I was looking at the soldiers,” said Pollak, referring to Eygi. “I saw the soldiers shooting. I saw the flare, I saw them aiming,” he said. Both he and Mariam said there were two shots – one that struck a metal object, and another that hit Eygi in the head.

“We were clearly visible to the army, there was nothing happening where were standing,” said Mariam. “We were internationals,” she said adding that Palestinian youth who had clashed with the soldiers were much further away, up the hill. “We were just standing there,” she said.

A video of the aftermath of the shooting showed what appeared to be military vehicles on a hill as an ambulance speeds away below them.

Pollak said Eygi’s killing was not “an isolated incident. Seventeen people have been killed at demonstrations in Beita since 2021,” he said. “The only reason we are hearing about it now is because it’s happening to an American,” he said. “It’s devastating.”

In the background of Friday’s protest is a sustained effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to expand Israel’s control over the West Bank, by approving land seizures and major settlement construction while escalating demolitions of Palestinian property and increasing state support for illegally built settler outposts.

The campaign has resulted in the most significant territorial changes in the West Bank in decades and buoyed a radical Jewish settler movement, backed by right-wing cabinet members trying to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state. The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on illegal settler outposts and on Israeli settlers accused of attacking Palestinians – measures that have had little impact on the expansion of settlements or the sharp escalation of settler violence.

ISM, in a statement, said Beita had seen ongoing demonstrations against the construction of illegal Israeli outposts on the village’s land. Eygi, who was from Seattle and had arrived in the Palestinian territories earlier this week, was in Beita to attend one of the weekly Friday demonstrations, the statement said. She was the third ISM volunteer killed since 2003.

Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old ISM activist from Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in March 2003, as she and others tried to prevent the razing of Palestinian homes by Israeli forces along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Her family argued in court that her killing had been intentional. Israeli military investigations found no wrongdoing.

Less than a month later, Tom Hurndall, a British ISM volunteer, was shot in the head by an IDF sniper in Gaza as Hurndall was trying to rescue children who had come under fire. The sniper, Taysir al-Heib, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison but released early. Hurndall, who fell into a coma, died nine months later.

Turkey’s government, which has been sharply critical of Israel since the beginning of the Gaza war, condemned what it said was the “murder” of Eygi “committed by the Netanyahu government” and said Israel was trying to “intimidate” people who came to aid Palestinians, according to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry.

Eygi’s profile on LinkedIn said she was a recent psychology graduate “with a minor in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of Washington”. Her volunteer work, it said, “has allowed me to make an impact both locally and internationally.” Her resume said she had worked with students, children with autism and as a legal assistant.

“I’m driven by a passion for making a positive impact and continuously seek opportunities to learn, grow, and contribute to meaningful projects,” her profile said. She graduated from college, it said, in June.

Washington Post