(Jerusalem) A young Turkish-American woman was fatally shot in the head on Friday during a protest against Israeli settlements in Beita, in the northern occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army admitted to having opened fire.
The Dr Fouad Nafaa, director of Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, in the northern West Bank, announced on Friday afternoon the death of the 26-year-old pro-Palestinian activist, Aysenur Egzi Eygi.
She “arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head and we pronounced her dead around 2:30 p.m.” (7:30 a.m. Eastern time), he told AFP by telephone from Jerusalem.
“We are urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death,” said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, describing the young woman’s death as “tragic” without immediately attributing responsibility.
PHOTO REUTERS
26-year-old pro-Palestinian activist Aysenur Egzi Eygi was fatally shot in the head on Friday.
“We learned with deep sadness that our citizen named Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was killed by the Israeli occupation soldiers […] “We condemn this murder committed by the government (of Israeli Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry wrote in a statement.
The young woman was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organization, and was in Beita to participate in a weekly demonstration against the expansion of Israeli settlements in the surrounding area, Neta Golan, co-founder of the NGO, told AFP.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and the UN regularly repeats that Israeli colonization of this Palestinian territory is illegal under international law.
Reached by telephone, the mayor of Beita, Mahmoud Barham, told AFP that the tragedy occurred after most of the demonstrators had dispersed.
“First participation”
“We returned home and only a small number of individuals remained at the scene, including the American activist,” Barham said, noting that this was his first time participating in the weekly Beita march.
The mayor said he was informed after returning home that an Israeli soldier “fired two bullets in the direction of those who remained.”
In a statement, the Israeli army said that members of the force operating near Beita had “responded with fire towards the main instigator of the violence who had thrown stones at the [soldats] and posed a threat to them.”
The military is “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of gunfire in the area” and “details of the incident [ainsi que] “The circumstances in which she was injured are being examined,” the text adds.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, an 18-year-old Palestinian was injured by Israeli gunfire in Beita.
“The message is clear and we say it [au président américain Joe] Biden: These American bullets that support the occupation government kill […] “American citizens, in the same way they are killing our children in Gaza, Jenin and Tulkarem” (two cities in the northern West Bank recently targeted by an Israeli military operation), Nablus Governor Ghassan Daghlass told reporters.
“During a peaceful march, foreigners and peace activists are killed,” he added, accusing Israel of “killing peace.”
Hussein Cheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said on X that the death of the American-Turkish activist was “an additional crime in the series of crimes committed every day by the occupying forces and which require that their perpetrators be held accountable before international justice.”
Since the start of the war on October 7 in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli army and Hamas, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement, violence between Palestinians on the one hand, and the Israeli army and settlers on the other, has intensified in the West Bank.
At least 661 Palestinians have been killed there by gunfire from Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to data from the Palestinian Health Ministry, and at least 23 Israelis, including soldiers, have died there in Palestinian attacks or military operations, according to official Israeli data.
In a statement, Hamas called the death of Aysenur Egzi Eygi a “heinous crime.”