A young Turkish-American woman was fatally injured by a bullet to the head on Friday, September 6, during a demonstration against Israeli colonization in Beita, in the north of the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army admitted to having opened fire.
Dr. Fouad Nafaa, director of Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, in the northern West Bank, announced the death of 26-year-old pro-Palestinian activist Aysenur Egzi Eygi on Friday afternoon. She “arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head and we pronounced her dead around 2:30 p.m.,” 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, calling the young woman’s death “tragic” without immediately assigning responsibility. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States “deplores this tragic loss. When we have more information, we will share it, make it available and act accordingly,” he said.
In a statement, the Israeli army said that members of the force operating near Beita “responded with shots towards the main instigator of the violence who threw stones at the [soldats] and posed a threat to them.” The military is “examining 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 hit are being examined,” the text adds.
“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 responded in a statement.
“First participation”
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 has repeatedly said that Israeli colonisation of the Palestinian territory is illegal under international law. Beita Mayor Mahmoud Barham told AFP by phone that the tragedy occurred after most of the protesters had dispersed.
“We returned home and only a small number of individuals remained at the scene, including the American activist,” Mahmoud Barham said, noting that this was “his first participation 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.”
Israel accused of “killing peace”
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, an 18-year-old Palestinian was also 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 kill our children in Gaza, Jenin and Tulkarm” (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 October 7 and the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli army and Hamas, triggered by the terrorist attack of 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 Ministry of Health, and at least 23 Israelis, including soldiers, have died there in Palestinian attacks or in military operations, according to official Israeli data.