The White House is urging Israel to conduct an investigation following the fatal shooting of a Turkish-American woman during a protest against an Israeli settler outpost in the West Bank.
Palestinian and Turkish officials have accused Israeli troops of shooting and killing the woman, identified as 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi by the State Department.
Eygi, a resident of Seattle, was in the West Bank with the International Solidarity Movement, a group of activists supporting Palestinian demonstrations against Israeli settlement expansion. Rachel Corrie, an American activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, was also part of the group.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stated, “We are urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death. We have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens.”
The Israeli military reported that its soldiers had fired at a male “main instigator” throwing stones at them, and they are currently investigating the incident involving Eygi.
The protest took place in the village of Beita, targeting the Israeli presence on Palestinian-claimed lands. Israeli settlers established the Evyatar outpost on a nearby hilltop in 2021 without government permission. Last month, the Israeli cabinet legalized the outpost, converting it into a recognized settlement.
Reports from Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, where Eygi passed away, indicated that her head was split by a bullet.
Governor Ghassan Daghlas of Nablus called on the United States to intervene, labeling Eygi’s death as an example of Israeli crimes.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned Israel’s actions after Eygi’s death, describing it as a “barbaric intervention against a civilian protest against the occupation in the West Bank.”
In a separate incident on the same day, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed in her home in the village of Qaryut near Nablus. Yesh Atid, a human rights group, stated that the shooting occurred after extremist Jewish settlers attacked the village, while Palestinian officials claimed the Israeli army fired the fatal shot.
According to the United Nations, over 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 7, including militants and civilians. Israel has reportedly arrested more than 5,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, with over 2,000 said to be affiliated with Hamas.