Israel Just Killed Another American in the West Bank. Will the U.S. Ever Respond?
Israeli soldiers shot and killed American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi on Friday while she was protesting an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, according to local media reports.
The killing of 26-year-old Eygi, who lived in the Seattle area, immediately prompted concerns that the United States government would not respond appropriately and seek accountability for her killing.
Earlier this year, two 17-year-old Palestinian Americans were killed in the West Bank: Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a Louisiana native who was shot in January by an off-duty Israeli officer and a settler, and Mohammad Khdour, a high school senior from Florida who was shot in the head by an Israeli gunman several weeks later. In both cases, the U.S. government decried the killings but have yet to launch investigations.
Not all Americans are equal when it comes to dying in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians."
Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, told The Intercept that such muted responses from the U.S government after the killings of American citizens in the occupied West Bank has become de facto policy.
The policy of the U.S. government, both the executive and legislative branches, has effectively been that not all Americans are equal when it comes to dying in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians," Friedman said. Israeli Americans are worth fighting for accountability and Palestinian Americans and Americans who stand with them are not. It almost feels farcical to have to say that out loud, because the record is so clear."
Related Israeli Forces Keep Killing Americans While U.S. Officials Give Them a Pass Friedman, a former U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem, recalled the death of fellow American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an armored Israeli bulldozer in 2003 while she protested against the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. Eygi, like Corrie, was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, an organization dedicated to nonviolent support of Palestinian popular resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Corrie's death was ultimately ruled by Israeli officials as an accident, a conclusion rejected by human rights organizations, who pointed to patterned killings. Friedman, who at the time was an activist with Americans for Peace Now, which opposes settlement expansion in the West Bank, said Corrie's crime was being in line with Palestinian rights."
She also recalled the 2021 killing of prominent Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. An Israeli sniper shot and killed her while she was wearing a press vest covering an Israel Defense Forces raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Forensic evidence showed her killing to be intentional, though an FBI probe into her death remains pending with U.S. officials, having gone silent.
Related Israeli Forces Deliberately Killed Palestinian American Journalist, Report Shows We have a president who says if you hurt Americans, you will pay," Friedman said, referring to President Joe Biden's comments made after three American soldiers were killed by a drone strike in Jordan. That is clearly not the case if the Americans are Palestinian American or if they are sympathetic and standing with Palestinians."
Eygi, an American of Turkish descent, had been in the area of Beita, a town located south of Nablus, with the Faz'a campaign, which works to support and protect Palestinian farmers from Israeli military and settler violence, according to Wafa, state media for the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli soldiers had reportedly responded to the protest by firing live ammunition, stun grenades, and tear gas at demonstrators, striking Eygi and injuring an 18-year-old Palestinian who was struck by shrapnel in the thigh, the report said. Other reports say an Israeli sniper fired and shot Eygi in the head. Eygi was rushed to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus where she died.
An IDF spokesperson said in a statement that its soldiers had been in the area near Beita on Friday and had fired shots at a main instigator of violent activity" who allegedly threw rocks at soldiers.
The IDF is looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area," the statement read, adding that the incident and how Eygi was hit was under review.
The U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said he was aware of Eygi's death on Friday morning in a statement posted on social media.
We offer our deepest condolences to her family and loved ones," Lew said. We are urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death, and will have more to say as we learn more. We have no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens."
Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow and director at the Middle East Institute, said Eygi's killing would have received far less attention had she not been an American citizen, adding that Israeli military targeting of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank with deadly force is routine and should've raised alarm bells long ago." He called on the U.S. government to ask serious questions about Israel's rules of engagement and whether they comply with international law, though he had little faith in Biden's administration.
Instead of answering those questions, the administration will do what it has done in the past: Try to sweep it under the rug, make it go away, and essentially provide cover for whatever the Israeli explanation is," Elgindy said.
AState Department reportfrom this past May found it likely that Israel has used weapons supplied by the U.S. in incidents that raise concerns" over violations of international human rights law, but concluded that Israel deserved credit for investigating its own use of force. Elgindy said he expected a similar response in Eygi's killing.
We know Israel targets and kills many civilians in many contexts, but they would never acknowledge that," Elgindy said. To accept the overwhelming evidence at face value that Israel is targeting civilians, including U.S. citizens - they cannot come to that realization because it would set off a chain reaction of needing to withhold military support, issue sanctions, so they have to keep rationalizing and explaining it away."
Eygi's death comes as Israeli forces have escalated its aggression in the West Bank, conducting large military operations in the northern part of the occupied territory. The majority of attacks have taken place in Jenin, where the IDF recently ended a nine-day occupation of the city, raiding homes, destroying roads and other civilian infrastructure, besieging hospitals, and killing dozens, including several civilians. Among the dead was a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was shot by an Israeli sniper as she looked out of her window, the girl's father told reporters. An Intercept investigation earlier this year found that nearly half of the people killed by Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank in the past year have been children.
Eygi had recently graduated with a degree in psychology and a minor in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of Washington this past June, according to her LinkedIn page. She had experience working locally and internationally with children with autism and had volunteered offering rehabilitative support for under-sources communities.
Eygi had joined protesters demonstrating against the expansion of an illegal settlement outpost, Evyatar, which was built in 2013 atop Palestinian land in Jabal Sbeih, outside of Beita. Over the past several years, Palestinian residents from Beita, alongside international activists, have held regular protests at the outpost, who are often met with violent responses from the Israeli military.
According toa 2023 reportby Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinians and injured over 6,000 protesters at Jabal Sbeih in a single year from May 2021 to May 2022. Analysis of the injuries showed the majority were from live bullets or rubber-coated metal bullets targeted at protesters' lower limbs, as a part of Israel's shoot-to-maim" policy. Among those injuries also included the use of rubber-coated bullets fired at protesters' heads. The report said the shots caused Beita residents to lose eyes and fractured skulls.
A volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement who had joined Eygi at the Beita protest recalled the moments as Israeli forces started firing shots and tear gas at protesters, which were described as men and children praying," according to a statement from the group.
We were standing on the road, about 200 meters from the soldiers, with a sniper clearly visible on the roof," said the volunteer, who went by the pseudonym Mariam Dag. Our fellow volunteer [Eygi] was standing a bit further back, near an olive tree with some other activists. Despite this, the army intentionally shot her in the head."
She decried the killing as just another example of the decades of impunity granted to the Israeli government and army, bolstered by the support of the US and European governments."
Another ISM volunteer, who remained anonymous, mourned the killing of their friend: I don't know how to say this. There's no easy way. I wish I could [say] something eloquent, but I can't through my sobbing tears.... my friend, comrade and travel partner to Palestine, was just shot in the head and murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces."
The group said Eygi was the 18th demonstrator killed protesting at Beita since 2020. Several weeks earlier, Amado Sison, another American volunteer, was struck by live ammunition in the back of the leg, the group said.
Friedman said she hoped the U.S. would respond to Eygi's killing with equality and that her activism and support for Palestinians wouldn't prohibit accountability.
There is not an ideological litmus test of whose lives count and which ones don't," Friedman said, And by imposing this litmus test - and it is bipartisan - we have sent a clear message to Israel and to others in the world: If Americans are politically on the wrong side of the conflict, they're not really Americans and we don't really care about them."
Update: September 6, 2024, 4:17 p.m. ET
The story has been updated with comments from Khaled Elgindy.
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