The Israeli army has shot dead the American activist of Turkish origin Aysenur Ezgi Eygi during a protest in the village of Beta in Nablus in the northern West Bank against settlement expansion, Nablus Governor Ghassan Daghlas said. An autopsy, Daghlas told Palestinian media, confirmed that the 26-year-old was “killed by an Israeli sniper’s bullet to the head.”
Eyewitnesses who were with her say that the demonstration was going on “peacefully” until the situation “escalated”. “We were demonstrating peacefully. The situation escalated when the army started firing tear gas and live ammunition, which forced us to retreat. We were standing on the road, about 200 metres from the soldiers, with a sniper clearly visible on the roof. Despite this, the army intentionally shot him in the head,” said a volunteer from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
From ISM, an organization to which Aysenur also belonged, They have denied that the young woman threw a stones against the soldiers during the protest as the Israeli Army alleged in a statement, in which He admitted to having opened fire to mitigate “the threat.” “The details of the incident and the circumstances in which the activist was beaten are being reviewed,” the military added in a statement on the case, about which no further information has yet been provided.
The US is investigating what happened
The United States has assured that investigates the “tragic death” and has assured that it is “urgently gathering information about the circumstances.” “We are intensely focused on gathering the facts and any action we take will be guided by them. We will find out exactly what happened and we will draw conclusions and consider consequences based on that,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Egzi’s family, for their part, have appealed for to get “an independent investigation” about “the illegal murder of an American citizen.” Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned Israel’s “barbaric” actions. “I condemn the barbaric intervention against a civil protest against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and I pray for God’s grace for our citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who lost her life in this attack,” Erdogan wrote on the social network X.
The Islamist group Hamas has also rejected death and has asserted that “the sinful bullets” that ended his life “are the same ones that Biden sends to the occupation army and that it uses daily against the Palestinian people.”
The secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hussein Sheikh, has also defined the events as “another crime in a series of daily violations committed by the occupation forces” and has called for those responsible for the death of Ezgi Eygi to be held accountable. be held accountable before international courts.
Israeli army withdraws from Jenin, but says it will continue to act
On Friday, Israeli troops announced their withdrawal from the city and refugee camp of Jenin in the north of the West Bank, after a ten-day incursion that left at least 19 people dead. This withdrawal, however, appears temporary, as the Israeli army has warned that its troops “continue to act to achieve the objectives of the anti-terrorist operation” in the West Bank.
In total, 36 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes and hand-to-hand fighting between soldiers and militants, including eight children and two elderly people, according to figures from the Health Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority, which governs shrinking parts of the occupied West Bank.
Israel, however, claims that during these raids they have managed to “eliminate some 35 terrorists” and arrest another 45. In addition, they have confiscated “dozens of weapons and explosives.”
