“We welcome the White House’s statement of condolences, but given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate.”
—Parents of Murdered Palestinian Rights Activist, Aysenur Eygi
Israeli Forces Reportedly Kill US Human Rights Activist With ‘Deliberate Shot to the Head’
Israeli Forces Reportedly Kill US Human Rights Activist With ‘Deliberate Shot to the Head’
“A soldier fired directly at the protestors, hitting the American activist in the head from behind,” said one eyewitness.
JULIA CONLEY, COMMON DREAMS, SEP 06, 2024
One journalist said that “devastating levels of impunity” were on display in the West Bank on Friday as Israeli forces reportedly shot a 26-year-old American human rights advocate, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, in the head, killing her as she protested the expansion of illegal settlements.
AJ+, Al Jazeera’s digitial platform, reported that according to eyewitness accounts, Eygi was killed by a “deliberate shot to the head.”
Eygi, who had dual citizenship in the U.S. and Turkey, was taking part in a campaign to protect Palestinian farmers from violence by Israeli settlers, 700,000 of whom live in illegal settlements erected over the last five decades in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Israel rejects the position of the United Nations’ highest court that the settlements violate international law, and the U.S. has continued to be the largest funder of the Israeli military despite thousands of deadly attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and settlers on Palestinians—and activists trying to protect them—in the West Bank.
The protest where Eygi was killed was in the town of Beita, near the settlement of Evyatar, which was authorized by Israel last year.
“Just as the prayers were finishing, the Israeli military started firing tear gas and stun grenades towards the protestors,” Hisham Dweikat, a resident of Beita, toldCNN. “As people were running away, live fire was shot and a soldier fired directly at the protestors, hitting the American activist in the head from behind and falling to the ground.”
Suhauna Hussain, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, said on X that Eygi lived in the Seattle area and had recently graduated from the University of Washington.
Israel has intensified attacks on the West Bank in recent months, despite the government’s claim that it is targeting Hamas, which operates in Gaza, in the current conflict that began last October.
On Friday, Israeli forces withdrew from the city of Jenin and its refugee camp after a 10-day operation that killed at least 36 Palestinians, including children. The U.N. warned Israel was using “lethal war-like tactics” this week as the IDF destroyed civilian infrastructure and carried out drone strikes in Jenin.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the Biden administration was “aware of the tragic death of an American citizen” in the West Bank and that officials were “urgently gathering more information.”
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, demanded that the State Department clarify how eyewitnesses and Palestinian media have characterized Eygi’s death.
“How’s they die, Matt?” said Tlaib. “Was it magic? Who or what killed Aysenur? Asking on behalf of Americans who want to know.”
Family of UW grad killed at West Bank protest calls for U.S. investigation
By Caitlynn Freeman, Seattle Times, Sep. 7, 2024
The family of the 26-year-old Seattleite who was killed Friday while protesting Israeli settlements in the West Bank called on President Joe Biden to order an independent investigation into her death, saying an Israel-led probe would be insufficient.
Fellow protesters say Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was also a Turkish citizen, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during a moment of calm after clashes earlier in the day, according to The Associated Press.
In a statement given through the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a California-based nonprofit, Eygi’s family said Eygi was killed “needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military,”
Her family described her as a gentle and brave person who had a passion for human rights. Eygi, the family’s statement said, “felt compelled” to travel to the West Bank to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
Eygi, a U.S. citizen, was born in Turkey and moved to the United States when she was less than a year old, The New York Times reported. She was a Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Central College student and graduated from the University of Washington this spring. She studied psychology and Middle Eastern languages and cultures.
The White House on Friday said it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing of a U.S. citizen and called on Israel to investigate what happened.
“We welcome the White House’s statement of condolences, but given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate,” the statement reads. “We call on President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Secretary of State Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties.”
Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry is holding the Israeli government responsible for Eygi’s death, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying at a Saturday event, that Israel had “heinously murdered our young child.”
Turkey will work “to ensure that those who killed our citizen is brought to justice,” ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said an “initial inquiry indicates” security forces were deployed to disperse a riot involving Palestinian and Israeli civilians in the area of the protest that “included mutual rock hurling.” The security forces fired shots in the air, the military said.
Eygi was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, the pro-Palestinian activist group said in a statement. Last spring, she also took part in pro-Palestinian organizing at UW related to the war in Gaza and engaged in negotiations with administrators over a protest encampment.
Rachel Corrie, from Olympia, was also an activist with the International Solidarity Movement when she was killed in Gaza in March 2003. Corrie was crushed to death as she tried to block an Israeli military bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, near the Egyptian border.
In a statement, her parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, also called for the U.S. to take action.
“Aysenur and her family deserve better than White House and Department of State platitudes and calls for Israeli investigations that never result in truth, action, or enforcement of U.S. law. We are demanding more,” the statement reads. “The time for accountability is now.”
Protesters will be honoring Eygi during a Saturday afternoon rally in West Lake Park.
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