Israel says highly likely its soldiers killed American-Turkish activist

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the killing of 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was ‘unprovoked and unjustified’.

Israel’s military says it is very likely its soldiers fired the shot that killed an American-Turkish woman at a protest in the occupied West Bank last week but says her death was unintentional and expresses deep regret.

Turkish and Palestinian officials said on Friday that Israeli soldiers shot 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who had been taking part in a demonstration against settlement expansion during a regular protest march by activists in Beita, a village near Nablus.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had conducted an inquiry into the incident.

“The inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by [Israeli military] fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot,” the military said.

“The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tyres and hurled rocks towards security forces at the Beita Junction.”

The Israeli military “expresses its deepest regret over the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi”, it added and said the military had also “sent a request to carry out an autopsy”.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had earlier said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a “shot in the head”.

Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation that on Saturday dismissed claims that ISM activists threw rocks at Israeli forces as “false” and said the demonstration was peaceful.

Eygi’s killing came amid a surge of violence in the West Bank since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian fighters on Israelis, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and heavier military crackdowns on Palestinian protests.

More than 690 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.

The Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession for Eygi in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Turkish authorities also said they are working on repatriating her body to Turkey for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim per her family’s wishes.

US says killing ‘unjustified’

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Eygi’s killing was “unprovoked and unjustified” and showed Israeli security forces need to make fundamental changes in their rules of engagement.

“No one should be shot while attending a protest. In our judgement, the Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank,” he said.

“We have the second American citizen killed at the hands of Israeli security forces. It’s not acceptable. It has to change.”

The deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention in the past, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera correspondent, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp.

Human rights groups said Israel rarely holds soldiers accountable for killing Palestinians and any military investigations often reflect a pattern of impunity.

The Israeli military, however, has repeatedly said it thoroughly investigates allegations of killings of civilians and holds its forces accountable.

But even in the most shocking cases – and those captured on video – soldiers often get relatively light sentences, such as in the 2017 case of Israeli soldier Elor Azaria.

The combat medic was convicted of manslaughter and served nine months after he killed a wounded, incapacitated Palestinian in the West Bank city of Hebron. The man, Abed al-Fattah al-Sharif, had been shot after the Israeli army said he stabbed an Israeli soldier.

The case deeply divided Israelis with the military saying Azaria had clearly violated its code of ethics while many Israelis – particularly on the nationalist right – defended his actions and accused military brass of second-guessing a soldier operating in dangerous conditions.