Witnesses Say Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi Was
Shot by Israeli Defense Force Soldiers
Bethan McKernan / The Guardian
JERUSALEM (September 6, 2024) — An American-Turkish dual national has been shot dead – reportedly by Israeli troops – while participating in a protest against settler expansion in the occupied West Bank.
Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old volunteer with the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement, died in hospital on Friday after being shot in the head during a protest in Beita, near Nablus, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Witnesses said she was shot at by Israeli soldiers positioned in a nearby field after “minor clashes” broke out. Troops surrounded a group of people praying, and Palestinians began to throw stones, which the soldiers responded to with teargas and live ammunition.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were looking into the report that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity”.
A paramedic, Fayez Abdul Jabbar, told Al-Quds News Network: “We usually have weekly confrontations at [the area]. During these confrontations [on Friday], the army fired two live bullets: one hit a foreigner, and the other hit another person, whose injury is less severe.” Eygi was treated on the way to hospital, he added. Fouad Nafaa, the head of the Rafidia hospital in Nablus, said doctors tried to resuscitate her, but she died on the operating table.
The US state department was urgently gathering more information about Eygi’s “tragic” death, the spokesperson Matthew Miller said, without immediately assigning responsibility for it. The White House said in a statement it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing and was seeking an Israeli investigation.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose relations with Israel have reached a nadir since the 7 October Hamas attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza, said on X: “I condemn Israel’s barbaric intervention against a civilian protest against the occupation in the West Bank, and I pray for God’s mercy on our citizen Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who lost her life in the attack.
“As Turkey, we will continue to strive on every platform to end Israel’s occupation and genocide policy … and to make it accountable before the law for its crimes against humanity.”
Eygi was a recent graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle. Pramila Jayapal, the US representative for the area, said in a statement that Eygi’s death was a “terrible tragedy”.
“My office is actively working to gather more information on the events that led to her death,” Jayapal said.
“I am very troubled by the reports that she was killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. The Netanyahu government has done nothing to stop settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank, often encouraged by rightwing ministers of the Netanyahu government. The killing of an American citizen is a terrible proof point in this senseless war of rising tensions in the region.”
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, but Evyatar, partly built on Beita land seized in 2013, was not built with Israeli government permission and was therefore considered an “outpost”, which is illegal under Israeli law. Evyatar’s future has been wrangled over in the Israeli courts for years, sparking regular high-profile protests from both Palestinians and settlers.
In April last year, a march at Evyatar demanding the outpost be legalised was attended by at least 1,000 people, including far-right members of the government, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Simcha Rothman. It was among several outposts legalised by the Israeli cabinet last month.
At least 10 Palestinians, including two children, have been killed by Israeli troops in protests related to Evyatar since 2021, according to human rights groups. Another US national volunteering with the Palestinian residents was shot in the leg during a Friday protest last month. The Israeli military said the man was “accidentally injured”.
Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has soared since 7 October, forcing dozens of communities to abandon their homes. Palestinian officials and rights groups have long accused the IDF of standing by or even joining in settler attacks.
Several of Israel’s western allies, including the US, have recently imposed sanctions on individuals and organisations associated with the settler movement.
Violent confrontations with settlers and Israeli soldiers have killed at least 690 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Attacks by Palestinians on Israelis have also increased over the past 11 months, with 25 in August, according to the security services. Most of these attacks are shootings.
Elsewhere in the West Bank on Friday, Israeli forces appeared to have withdrawn from three areas – Jenin, Tulkarem and al-Faraa – after more than a week of fighting with Palestinian militant groups that has left dozens dead and caused widespread destruction.
The main focus of the biggest Israeli operation in the West Bank since 7 October has been the refugee camp in the northern city of Jenin, where thousands of residents either fled or were trapped in their homes with no water or electricity.
In Gaza, at least 12 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the territory on Friday, including a woman and two children, health officials said, as medical teams pushed ahead with a vital polio vaccination drive after the first reported case in Gaza for 25 years.
Internationally mediated talks aimed at brokering a ceasefire and hostage release in the now 11-month-old conflict have repeatedly stalled. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is under increasing pressure from allies to agree to a truce; he has insisted that Israeli troops cannot withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border – a red line for Hamas – despite giving the measure the green light in a previous round of talks in July.
Dani Anguiano contributed reporting
