The young American activist, newly arrived in the West Bank, was nervous but determined. She believed that her presence, along with that of other foreign protesters, could help protect the land and lives of Palestinian villagers in the shadow of an encroaching Jewish settlement.
On Friday, in the makeshift shelter of a few twisted olive trees near the Palestinian village of Beita, her first outing in the countryside became her last. As her companions on a rocky, barren hillside watched in horror, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26 — a cheerful, black-haired recent graduate of the University of Washington — fell to the ground, mortally wounded by a bullet to the head.
Friends of slain activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi carry signs with her image during her funeral procession in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Eygi, a US citizen, was killed during a protest against settlements.
(Nasser Nasser / Associated Press)
“I saw a soldier on the roof pointing his gun in our direction,” said Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli activist who was standing a short distance from where Eygi and a small group of protesters were when the shots were fired.
After a brief earlier clash in which Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at Palestinian protesters, all was calm, he said, and the contingent that included Eygi and his foreign companions had moved some distance away.
“Nothing was happening,” he said in an interview. “Everything was calm.”
Pollak then heard two shots and panicked screams behind him.
“I saw Aysenur lying on the ground under an olive tree, bleeding to death,” he said. He and others tried to give her first aid, but although paramedics arrived quickly, it was clear they could not save her.
“I could see brain matter,” said a European protester standing a few metres away at the time, who wanted to be identified only as Mariam. Eygi, an American and Turkish national, was later declared dead at a hospital in the nearby city of Nablus in the northern West Bank.
On Monday, hundreds of people marched in Nablus. They hoisted Eygi's body, draped in a Palestinian flag and a black-and-white kaffiyeh, and denounced the young woman's death as the cold-blooded murder of a peaceful protester.
Her family said she would be buried in Turkey, where Eygi was born before spending her childhood and early adult years in the United States.
The Israeli military, which acknowledged firing to quell what it called a threat to troop safety, said in an initial statement Friday that it was investigating the incident but did not respond to subsequent questions.
The White House said Friday it was “deeply disturbed” by news of the death, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the Biden administration was seeking additional information from Israel.
But in the days since, Eygi's friends, family and associates have expressed doubts that anyone can be held accountable for the killing, especially if it is the Israeli military itself that is investigating.
They pointed to similar deaths not only of Palestinian civilians but also of other American citizens in the West Bank and Gaza, including veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead in the northern West Bank in 2022 while reporting on an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp.
The Israeli military eventually apologized for Abu Akleh's death, citing the “high probability” that a soldier shot him, but said it was a mistaken target. No criminal investigation was opened.
“There is a culture of cover-up,” said Neta Golan, an Israeli activist who in 2001 co-founded the International Solidarity Movement, which organizes nonviolent protests in the Palestinian territories, including Friday’s in Beita. “Israeli investigations are not investigations, they are, ‘How do we cover this up?’”
The killing sparked widespread calls for an independent investigation, including by the United Nations.
“People must be held accountable,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
In a statement released over the weekend, the Eygi family also called for an independent investigation. “An Israeli investigation is not enough,” they said.
Pressed for a more complete response on the killing, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Monday that U.S. officials were still waiting for Israeli officials to present the results of their own investigation.
“We are encouraging our partners in Israel to swiftly and robustly conduct and conclude their process and make their findings public,” Patel told reporters at the State Department in Washington. “We are not going to preempt that process.”
Israeli officials have said little publicly about Eygi's death, although an Israeli spokesman said U.S. Ambassador Jack Lew raised the issue in a weekend meeting with President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial.
“The president expressed his regret at his death and said the incident was being investigated by the [Israeli military]” said spokesman Jason Pearlman.
The Israeli authorities have long considered the International Solidarity Movement a thorn in their side, and sometimes try to prevent the entry of foreign activists who travel to the Palestinian territories through Israel to take part in their protests. In 2003, another American activist with the organisation, Rachel Corrie, aged 23, was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer when she tried to block house demolitions in the Gaza Strip.
Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, said Eygi's death had revived painful memories. The couple, who set up a non-profit foundation in their daughter's name, also called for an independent investigation into Eygi's murder, which they compared to Rachel's.
The latest episode has heightened diplomatic tensions between the United States and Turkey, a NATO ally that has sharply criticized U.S. support for Israel in the 11-month-old war in the Gaza Strip. Turkey's foreign ministry condemned Eygi's death, calling it murder.
Turkish authorities said the repatriation of Eygi's remains had been complicated by a deadly attack at the weekend at the land crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, and that the body might have to be flown on a direct flight to Turkey. On Sunday, a Jordanian gunman killed three Israeli civilian workers at the crossing, which was closed after the attack.
Since the Gaza war began in October, violence has escalated in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with more than 600 Palestinians killed, according to UN figures.
In light of this, some critics have questioned whether international activists were deliberately putting themselves in danger by taking part in demonstrations such as the one near Beita, which take place almost every week.
Mariam, the European protester who was standing a few metres away from Eygi when she was shot and who was with her during the preparations for the protest, described her as a serious person, aware of the risks, but cheerful.
“She had the most beautiful smile,” said Mariam, who did not want to be fully identified for security reasons.
Egyi's college classmates described her as a committed and passionate person.
She “abhorred suffering and believed in justice,” Kyle Haddad-Fonda, a history professor at the University of Washington, told the Seattle Times.
Since 2020, more than a dozen Palestinians have been killed in protests against the Israeli settlement of Evyatar, whose creation contravened international and Israeli law. Palestinians say settlers have seized private land in a campaign of violence and intimidation against villagers.
Protest organizers said Eygi and those with her that day did what they could to protect themselves, but the dangers were obvious to all. One example was the shooting of a 13-year-old Palestinian girl earlier that day in a nearby town as she watched a clash between troops and Palestinians from her window.
“She really played it safe,” International Solidarity Movement co-founder Golan, who was not present at Friday's protest, said of Eygi.
“She was left behind. They entered the olive grove and there was nothing there. She should have been safe.”
Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report from Washington.
