The IDF killed a Turkish-American activist during an anti-settler protest in the West Bank yesterday. According a report in the Times of Israel, witnesses and Palestinian media reported that the woman was shot by Israeli troops while attending a pro-Palestinian demonstration against settlement expansion in the Palestinian town of Beita, southeast of Nablus. The slain woman was named as Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, an American originally from Türkiye. She was reportedly an activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). A 13-year-old Palestinian girl was also shot dead in her bedroom during a settler rampage in Nablus.
“We deplore this tragic loss,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, while in Haiti. “Now the most important thing to do is to gather the facts, and that’s exactly what we’re in the process of doing, and we are intensely focused on getting those facts. And any actions that we take are driven by the facts. So first things first, let’s find out exactly what happened, and we will draw the necessary conclusions, consequences from that.”
According to the IDF, during operations near the town of Beita, troops opened fire at a “main instigator” who was hurling stones at the forces and had “posed a threat.” “A claim that a foreign citizen was killed by gunfire in the area is being investigated. The details of the incident and the circumstances of her being hit are under investigation,” the IDF added.
In Türkiye, there’s little doubt that Eygi was a victim of Israel’s war of genocide against the Palestinian people. Erdogan on Sept. 6 condemned “Israel’s barbaric intervention against peaceful anti-occupation protest in the West Bank,” reported Anadolu Agency. The Turkish Foreign Ministry also issued a statement condeming “this murder committed by the Netanyahu government.”