JUAN COLE, INFORMED CONSENT, 09/07/2024
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Basil Maghrebi at the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that on Friday, Israeli troops killed an American observer in the West Bank with a gunshot to her head, as she participated in a procession at Beita south of Nablus in the Palestinian West Bank. Aysenur Eygi, 26, a US citizen, was a recent graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle and was volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Beita residents are constantly harassed by illegal Israeli squatters who have stolen Palestinian land at nearby Eviatar for their squatter-settlement.
The occupation army said in a statement, “During activity of the security forces near the village of Beita today, the force responded with fire toward a principal instigator who was throwing stones toward the forces and constituted a danger to them. We are undertaking an investigation of reports of the death of a foreign national in the area, and the circumstances and details of her injury.”
(Cole: I call bullshit on this “statement.” It is illegal to fire live ammunition at unarmed protesters. Protesters do not pose a danger to heavily armed Israeli security forces. Eyewitnesses say that the real reason the Israeli troops opened fire was an attempt to stop the protest march, which of course is a war crime every which way from Sunday, or from Friday as the case may be.
Fellow protester Jonathan Pollack said, “It was quiet. There was nothing to justify the shot. The shot was taken to kill.”)
Moreover, The US State Department, which would have gone ballistic if Hamas or Putin had killed an American, issued mealy-mouthed pablum. They are going to “gather information.” But they didn’t act that way in other instances where a foreign military shot down an American in cold blood.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US would gather information on the Israeli killing of Turkish-American citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and comment further later. pic.twitter.com/hDgmZhXTAO
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 7, 2024
The Turkish foreign ministry said, “We condemn the crime of murder committed by the Netanyahu government.”
Maghrebi writes that medical sources revealed that Eygi was struck by Israeli live fire in the head, suffering a grave wound, during the occupation army’s attempt to suppress a weekly march at Beita protesting the Israeli colonization of the West Bank. Strenuous efforts were made to save her life, but she succumbed to her wounds.
The director of the hospital, the Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus, Fuad Nafiah, announced the death of the American solidarity protester, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. As she reached the hospital, there was brain tissue outside her cranium. The medical team provided her with cardiopulmonary resuscitation for a few minutes, but she died of her injuries.
In the same incident, An 18-year-old young man was also injured by Israeli bullet shrapnel in the thigh.
Local sources said that the occupation troops tried to stop the protest march at Beita, which lead to confrontations, in which Israeli troops let loose a volley of live fire and threw flash bombs and fired tear gas canisters (which can be fatal if they hit you) toward the protesters.
“Hope,” Digital, Dream / Impressionism v3, Clip2Comic, 2024
Eygi was participating in a program seeking to protect Palestinian farmers from harassment by Israeli squatters and by the Israeli military.
In 2003, an Israeli driving an earth mover bore down on Rachel Corrie, who had also gone to the West Bank as part of the International Solidarity Movement, killing her.
The Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hussein Sheikh, said that the Israeli occupation army’s killing of Eygi was “another crime added to the series of crimes being committed daily by the Israeli forces, which cry out for international courts to hold their perpetrators accountable.”
On Friday, as well, Israeli squatters also attacked the the village of Qaryout in Nablus, in the north of the Palestinian West Bank, beating a 30-year-old young man so badly they sent him to the hospital.
The Middle East Monitor has written,
“The town of Beita has turned into an icon of the popular resistance in occupied Palestine . . . Lying south of Nablus, Beita defends its property and land across the adjacent Mount Sabih area, part of which was seized by settlers to establish an illegal outpost that they called Eviatar, after a settler who was killed in a resistance operation there some time ago. It covers dozens of acres on the mountain, but there is a malicious plan to control hundreds more and establish a large settlement to isolate Beita and the neighbouring towns from their Palestinian surroundings, ending up as a major settlement network deep within the Palestinian cities, towns and villages in the West Bank.
The settlers took advantage of the Palestinian and global preoccupation . . . to establish the settlement outpost in Mount Sabih. The Israeli occupation army paved roads and connected infrastructure networks for the outpost, which is illegal even under colonial Israeli law, and the government actually ordered its removal . . .
The people of Beita rose up in defence of their land, future and destiny, by adopting the option of peaceful popular resistance around the clock, inspired by the atmosphere and uprisings in the occupied territories over the past few months. The town and its activities represented Jerusalem during the day and Gaza at night. The people carry out various activities and events during the day, including gatherings, demonstrations, sit-ins, seminars, speeches and festivals, and hold Friday prayers on Mount Sabih. All of this is accompanied by popular chants and traditional nationalist songs, including one specific to the town. At night, Beita and the surrounding area combine to become Gaza, with more robust popular resistance methods to create confusion. This includes the use of loudspeakers, flashing lights, lasers and fireworks, so that the settlers and the occupation army units sent to defend them cannot sleep.”
Earlier this year, the current fascist government in Israel legalized Eviatar in Israeli law, though it remains a gross violation of the 4th Geneva Convention and of the judgment of the International Court of Justice that the Israeli occupation is illegal.
About the Author
Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page
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