Israeli soldiers kill American activist during protest in Nablus

The onAmerican activist of Turkish descent Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26 years oldha dead this Friday after receiving a Israeli army shot down which caused serious head injuries, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

The activist took part in the peaceful weekly march which is celebrated in the village of Beta, in Nablus, south of the occupied West Bank, against settlement expansion, while Israeli forces have suppressed the protests with live ammunition, grenades and tear gas.

“This weekly march is always met with live fire because there is no legal way for Palestinians to demonstrate in the West Bank under Israeli military rule,” Alon Lee Green, Israeli activist and co-director of the peaceful movement Standing, wrote on his X account together’.

Ezgi Eygi was rushed to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, where she was admitted to intensive care. Medical efforts were unable to save her due to the severe head injuries she sustained.

According to Wafa, an 18-year-old Palestinian was also wounded by shrapnel during the incident.

The Israeli army, for its part, said in a statement that it had seen forced to open fire to ‘mitigate the threat’ of ‘an instigator of stone throwing’ “The details of the incident and the circumstances in which the activist was beaten are being assessed,” they added in the military memo.

The young woman volunteered for the International Solidity Movement (ISM) in a campaign aimed at protecting Palestinian farmers from Israeli settlers. The same humanitarian organization Rachel Corrie worked for, which was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003.

Judgmental reactions

The Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Hussein Sheikh, has condemned “the killing of the activist” and defined it as “a new crime in a series of daily violations committed by the occupying forces.”

Also Hamas has condemned the activist’s death, claiming that “the sinful bullets” that ended her life “are the same ones Biden is sending to the occupying army and using against the Palestinian people every day.”

For the Palestinian group, this death illustrates “the cruelty of the occupation that tries to kill all voices that are against the war” and that “have solidarity with the Palestinian cause”.

In the same sense it has also been said Turkish governmentas the killing of Ezgi Eygi was an attempt to ‘intimidate’ pro-Palestinian activists. “We received with deep sadness the news that our citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot dead by soldiers of the Israeli occupation in Nablus, West Bank,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“We condemn this crime committed by the government of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu,” the note adds, denouncing that “Israel wants to intimidate anyone who comes to the aid of the Palestinians and fights peacefully against the genocide. Violence will not yield results,” it denounces.

Also the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoganhas condemned the death of activist Eygi, born in Antalya in 1998 and a dual American and Turkish citizen. “I condemn the barbaric intervention against a civil protest against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and I beg God’s mercy for our citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who lost her life in this attack,” Erdogan wrote on the X network.

Blinken assures he will act “if necessary”

The United States is analyzing events in the West Bank and “if necessary we will act,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, referring to the activist’s death.

At a press conference in Santo Domingo, where he is visiting, Blinken described the “tragic loss” as “regrettable” and expressed the US government’s condolences to the family of American activist of Turkish descent Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.