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08-09-2024
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations has called for a “full investigation” into the killing of a US-Turkish woman in the occupied West Bank during a protest on Friday.
Local media reported that Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was shot dead by Israeli forces as she took part in a weekly protest against Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita near Nablus.
Israel’s military said it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area”.
An eyewitness told media, he had heard two shots fired at the protest.
Reacting to the killing, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN secretary general, said: “We would want to see a full investigation of the circumstances and that people should be held accountable.”
Civilians, he added, “must be protected at all times”.
The US also called for an investigation into the incident. Sean Savett, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said Washington was “deeply disturbed by the tragic death of an American citizen”.
“We have reached out to the government of Israel to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident,” Savett said.
Footage from the scene shortly after the shooting shows medics rushing Eygi into an ambulance.
Jewish-Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, who was at the protest, told media, he had seen “soldiers on the rooftop aiming”.
He said he had heard two separate shots, “with like a second or two distance between them”.
“I heard someone calling my name, saying in English, ‘Help us. We need help. We need help.’ I ran towards them,” he said.
He said he had then seen Eygi “lying on the ground underneath an olive tree, bleeding to death from her head”.
“I put my hand behind her back to try and stop the bleeding,” he said. “I looked up, there was a clear line of sight between the soldiers and where we were. I took her pulse, and it was very, very weak.”
He added that Friday’s demonstration had been Eygi’s first time attending a protest with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group.
The dual-national was rushed to a hospital in Nablus and later pronounced dead.
Dr Fouad Nafaa, head of Rafidia Hospital where Eygi was admitted, confirmed that a US citizen in her mid-20s had died from a “gunshot in the head”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken deplored the “tragic loss”, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan branded the Israeli action “barbaric”.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said Eygi had been “killed by Israeli occupation soldiers in the city of Nablus”.
Before travelling to the Middle East, Eygi had recently graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle.
The school’s president, Ana Mari Cauce, described news of her death as “awful” while adding that Eygi had had a “positive influence” on other students.
Eygi was born in Antalya, as reported by Turkish media.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “During Israeli security forces activity adjacent to the area of Beita, the forces responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.
“The IDF is looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area. The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review.” (Int’l News Desk)
