Israel says highly likely its soldiers killed American-Turkish activist
Israel’s military says it is very likely its soldiers fired the shot that killed an American-Turkish woman at a protest in the occupied West Bank last week but says her death was unintentional and expresses deep regret.
Turkish and Palestinian officials said on Friday that Israeli soldiers shot 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who had been taking part in a demonstration against settlement expansion during a regular protest march by activists in Beita, a village near Nablus.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had conducted an inquiry into the incident.
“The inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by [Israeli military] fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot,” the military said.
“The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tyres and hurled rocks towards security forces at the Beita Junction.”
The Israeli military “expresses its deepest regret over the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi”, it added and said the military had also “sent a request to carry out an autopsy”.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had earlier said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a “shot in the head”.
Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation that on Saturday dismissed claims that ISM activists threw rocks at Israeli forces as “false” and said the demonstration was peaceful.
US says killing ‘unjustified’
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Eygi’s killing was “unprovoked and unjustified” and showed Israeli security forces need to make fundamental changes in their rules of engagement.
“No one should be shot while attending a protest. In our judgement, the Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank,” he said.
“We have the second American citizen killed at the hands of Israeli security forces. It’s not acceptable. It has to change.”
The deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention in the past, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera correspondent, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp.
Human rights groups said Israel rarely holds soldiers accountable for killing Palestinians and any military investigations often reflect a pattern of impunity.
