Key Points
- Israeli troops have reportedly killed a Turkish-American woman during a protest against settlement expansion.
- Palestinian and Turkish officials have said 26-year-old activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head.
- Israel’s military said its troops had fired toward a “main instigator” who had hurled rocks at soldiers.
Israeli troops have shot and killed a Turkish-American woman taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Turkish officials said.
The White House said it was deeply disturbed by the death of recent graduate and activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi — and called on Israel to investigate.
Türkiye’s foreign ministry said she was shot in the head and placed the blame on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Violence has escalated in the occupied West Bank, prompting condemnation by the UN Human Rights Office. Source: AAP / Nasser Ishtayeh
‘I begged her not to go’
Israel’s military said its troops had fired toward a male “main instigator” who posed a threat by hurling rocks at soldiers.
The military was looking into reports a female foreign national “was killed as a result of shots fired in the area”.
“The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review,” it said.
Palestinian officials described her as a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who held both US and Turkish citizenship.
“I begged her not to go (to the West Bank), but she had this deep conviction that she wanted to participate in the tradition of bearing witness to the oppression of people and their dignified resilience,” Aria Fani, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures at the University of Washington, told the Guardian.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from Netanyahu’s office.
Washington ‘deeply disturbed’
Fouad Nafaa, head of Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, told Reuters Eygi arrived there in critical condition with a serious head injury.
“We tried to perform a resuscitation operation on her but unfortunately she died,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA said the incident occurred during a regular protest march by activists in Beita, a village near Nablus that had been subjected to repeated attacks on Palestinians by Jewish settlers.
Eygi’s family described her as a “fiercely passionate human rights activist” who had recently participated in college campus protests against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
The statement called on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to pursue an independent US probe into her killing.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said Washington was “deeply disturbed by the tragic death of an American citizen” in the West Bank.
Türkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan condemned Eygi’s death, saying in a post on social media that Türkiye “will continue to work in every platform to halt Israel’s policy of occupation and genocide”.
Israel denies its actions in occupied Palestinian territories amount to genocide.
Rashid Mahmoud Abdul Qader Sada, 23, was fatally shot during a settler raid in Jit, a Palestinian town in the north of the occupied West Bank, amid a surge in Israeli violence area. Source: AAP / Brendan Rains
Settler violence elsewhere
In a separate incident on Friday near Beita, in the village of Qaryut, a 13-year-old girl was killed by Israeli gunfire, Palestinian health officials said, after settlers attacked the village.
WAFA quoted the girl’s father as saying she was in their home when it was hit by gunfire.
The Israeli military said it was investigating after its troops had fired in the air to disperse what it described as violent confrontations between dozens of settlers and Palestinians in the area.
A rise in violent attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has stirred anger among Western allies of Israel, including the US, which has imposed sanctions on some Israelis involved in the settler movement.
