President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday issued separate statements shedding crocodile tears for the IDF’s cold-blooded killing of Turkish-American dual citizen Aysenur Eygi on Sept. 6 during a protest in the West Bank. “Israel has acknowledged its responsibility for Aysenur’s death, and a preliminary investigation has indicated that it was the result of a tragic error resulting from an unnecessary escalation. The U.S. government has had full access to Israel’s preliminary investigation, and expects continued access as the investigation continues, so that we can have confidence in the result,” Biden said. “There must be full accountability. And Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”
Harris’s statement was only slightly different: the acceptance of the Israeli explanation of how Eygi was killed inadvertently. The IDF a statement on Sept. 10 reported that an initial inquiry had said IDF soldiers were aiming for a “central instigator” but likely also struck and killed Eygi unwittingly, a conclusion that is hotly contested by eyewitnesses and Eygi’s family.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), with whom Eygi was working, has said that it rejects this “specious” claim and continues to demand an independent investigation of the Israeli army’s killing of Eygi, reported Middle East Monitor. “We are joined in this demand by people worldwide who have watched Israel operate with impunity for decades,” said the ISM. “The world sees through this transparent attempt to conceal the Israeli army’s responsibility for Aysenur’s killing. She is just one of the tens of thousands killed by Israel over decades of ethnic cleansing, displacement and genocide.”
