IDF says killing of American activist was unintentional and expresses ‘deepest regret’
Members of Palestinian security forces carry the body of Turkish-American International Solidarity Movement activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi during a funeral procession in Nablus in the West Bank. (Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(JTA) — The Israel Defense Forces said that indirect and unintentional gunfire from its troops likely killed Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, and expressed regret over her death.
Eygi, 26, was killed in the West Bank on Friday during a protest in the Palestinian village of Beita, against the nearby Israeli settlement outpost of Evyatar, which is on lands the Palestinian residents claim as their own. A resident of Seattle, she was protesting with the International Solidarity Movement, a group that has long demonstrated in Palestinian areas against Israel.
The White House called for an investigation into her death, and the IDF said on Friday that its troops had fired at another protester who was throwing stones at its soldiers. The IDF said in a statement Tuesday following an initial inquiry into Eygi’s death that that gunfire is most likely what killed her. It will be conducting an autopsy.
“The inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot,” the statement said. “The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks toward security forces at the Beita Junction.”
The statement added, “The IDF expresses its deepest regret over the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.”
More than 600 Palestinians have been killed and thousands arrested in Israeli military operations against suspected terrorists in the West Bank since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza nearly a year ago, a time during which dozens of Israelis have been killed in terror attacks in the West Bank and Israel, including three who were shot at a border crossing into Jordan on Sunday.
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