A 26-year-old American-Turkish pro-Palestine activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, was shot dead by Israeli forces today in the occupied West Bank during a protest against illegal Jewish settlement expansion.
Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli soldiers opened live fire on a group of Palestinians participating in a demonstration condemning the illegal settlements on Mount Sbeih in Beita, south of Nablus.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa confirmed that the victim was an American citizen and a volunteer with the Fazaa campaign, an initiative aimed at supporting and protecting Palestinian farmers from the ongoing violations by illegal Israeli settlers and army.
Fouad Nafaa, director of the Rafidia Hospital, told Anadolu that Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head.
Eygi, who was born in the Turkish city of Antalya in 1998, succumbed to her injuries despite attempts by medical teams to revive her, according to Nafaa.
Residents of Beita hold weekly protests after Friday prayers to oppose the illegal Israeli settlement of Avitar, which is established on the peak of Mount Sbeih. The community demands the removal of the illegal settlement, which they view as a violation of their land rights.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say they “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them” in the Beita area.
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In a statement, the IDF said it was “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,” the Israeli military added.
The Turkish foreign ministry described her death as “murder”, adding that Ms Ezgi Eygi was “killed by Israeli occupation soldiers in the city of Nablus.”
“Another crime added to the series of crimes committed daily by the occupation forces, which require that their perpetrators be held accountable in international courts,” said Hussein al-Sheikh, the secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in a statement on his X account.
Hamas, for its part, described her killing as “a heinous crime,” and called it “an extension of the occupation’s deliberate crimes against foreign solidarity activists.”
“We call upon the U.S. administration to review its policies that are biased and supportive to the crimes and massacres of the (Israeli) occupation against our Palestinian people,” Hamas said.
The Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in a statement also condemned Aysenur’s killing by the Israeli forces, adding that her killing “brings to mind the long series of crimes committed by the Israeli army against international solidarity activists.”
Tensions have escalated throughout the occupied West Bank as Israel continues its assault on the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 40,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7 last year.
At least 691 people have been killed and over 5,700 injured by Israeli fire in the West Bank since then, according to the Health Ministry.
