American activist shot dead by Israeli forces at West Bank protest, eyewitnesses say

(CNN) — A young Turkish-American woman, Aysenur Eygi, was shot and killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, according to US and Palestinian officials, while she was taking part in a protest near Nablus.

Eygi was shot in the head by Israeli forces responding to the gathering, according to two eyewitnesses who spoke to CNN. The 26-year-old had been participating in a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian village of Beita, they also said.

The Israeli military has admitted to firing at the demonstrators. In a statement, the IDF added that its forces “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.”

The IDF is “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area,” it also said.

Eygi had been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the same pro-Palestinian activist group as Rachel Corrie, a US citizen who was killed in 2003 while trying to block an Israeli bulldozer from razing Palestinian homes in Gaza.

“This morning brought the awful news that Israeli troops reportedly killed recent UW graduate Aysenur Eygi in the West Bank,” University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce said in a statement. “Aysenur was a peer mentor in psychology who helped welcome new students to the department and provided a positive influence in their lives.”

She was a University of Washington graduate who graduated from the Seattle-based institution this spring.

Protests at Beita are common. The Palestinian town is next to a ramshackle Israeli settler outpost known as Evyatar. The settlement was unauthorized by the Israeli state until it was legalized earlier this year. All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah said that the activist arrived at Rafidia Governmental Hospital “with serious occupation gunshot wounds to the head.”

“Medical teams have announced her death after resuscitation attempts and treatment,” it added.

Eygi held both US and Turkish citizenship. US officials are looking into the deadly incident, and the Turkish government has said it holds Israel responsible for her death.

‘As people were running away, live fire was shot’

Eyewitnesses described the moments leading up to her killing on Friday.

Eygi was crouched near a dumpster at the bottom of a hill when gunfire began, Vivi Chen, who volunteers for Faza’a – another pro-Palestinian group which works in partnership with ISM – said. Chen confirmed Eygi was there with ISM.

“We were all at the bottom of the hill and the Israeli army was at the top,” Chen said. “There were two volunteers sitting behind a dumpster and they fired one shot at the dumpster. It hit a metal plane. And then there was another shot and they shot – they shot her in the head.”

Video shared with CNN by Chen shows paramedics wrestling her body onto a stretcher. Blood pours from a hole in her forehead. Eygi was brought to Rafidia hospital in Nablus, where she was pronounced dead.

Chen said she believed Eygi was targeted. “They have weapons from America. It is not an accident that they hit her in the head. That was on purpose. It’s not that they shot a hundred shots at the same time, and she was hit with one. We were all standing still, not moving. Just standing there, and they shot her through the head.”

Dr. Hisham Dweikat, a resident of Beita who took part in the demonstration, told CNN that as the protest was wrapping up, the Israeli military started firing tear gas towards the crowd.

“As people were running away, live fire was shot and a soldier fired directly at the protesters, hitting the American activist in the head from behind and falling to the ground,” he also said.

Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, who was taking part in Friday’s protest, said Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and live ammunition at the peaceful demonstration, forcing protesters to retreat. After a 20-minute lull, Pollak said he noticed an Israeli soldier aiming his rifle and heard shots.

One bullet struck a young man, and the other hit Eygi, who was standing near an olive tree, according to Pollak. “I ran towards them. They were in the olive grove just behind, and I found her lying on the ground under an olive tree, bleeding to death. She had a bullet hole in her head,” Pollak said.

A fellow ISM volunteer, who declined to be named due to security concerns, said the protest was peaceful, and they were “demonstrating alongside Palestinians against the colonization of their land and the illegal settlement of Evyatar.”

The volunteer said the “situation escalated when the Israeli army began to fire tear gas and live ammunition.”

ISM describes itself as a Palestinian-led movement founded in 2001, saying on its website that it uses non-violent, direct-action methods to resist the “oppression and dispossession of Palestinians.” The group supports Palestinians by standing alongside them during demonstrations and in areas facing attacks in the occupied West Bank.

Global response

The governor of Nablus, Ghassan Daghlas, decried Eygi’s death during a visit to Rafidia hospital.

“We say to the international community, this woman held American citizenship,” he told journalists. “But the bullets did not differentiate between a Palestinian, a child, an old man, or a woman, and between one nationality and another.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was working to “gather the facts” of Eygi’s killing and offered condolences to her family – but did not suggest any immediate policy changes related to her death.

Even when there have been determinations that Israeli forces were responsible for the killings of Americans in the West Bank – like Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – the US has not altered its policies and has continued to provide significant military support to those forces.

National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said earlier the US was “deeply disturbed” by Eygi’s killing. “We have reached out to the Government of Israel to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident,” he added.

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew confirmed that Eygi, who was born in Turkey, was the victim and said the embassy was “urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death.”

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry condemned Eygi’s death, saying it held the Israeli government responsible and confirming she was also a Turkish citizen. “We will follow up on bringing those who killed our citizens to justice,” spokesperson Oncu Keceli said.

Raids and airstrikes in the West Bank

The activist’s death comes nine days after Israel’s military launched one of its most expansive operations in the West Bank in years, carrying out raids, bulldozing highways, and launching airstrikes in multiple parts of the occupied territory.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the operation aimed to “thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure,” claiming that Iran was working to establish an “eastern front” against Israel to work alongside Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Residents of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, described scenes of devastation by the Israeli military. Several Palestinians warned of destruction to critical infrastructure – including health care services, water and electricity supplies.

“It felt like Gaza,” 36-year-old Lina Al Amouri said by telephone from Jenin. She and her husband fled several days into the IDF incursion, but went back when they heard rumors that the operation had quieted.

The military withdrew from Jenin and Tulkarem on Friday, according to residents. But an Israeli security source said that “the overall operation in Jenin is not over, it is only a pause.”

Clashes in the West Bank have become more frequent since Israel began its war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Israeli troops and settlers have killed nearly 700 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Michael Conte and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.