Twenty-six year old International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi has been killed in the West Bank.
The International Solidarity Movement has issued a statement that says: “During the weekly demonstration in Beita, Palestine, on the morning of [Friday] September 6th, 2024, the Israeli army intentionally shot and killed an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) human rights activist named Ayşenur Eygi.”
It adds: “The Israeli forces fired two rounds. One hit a Palestinian man in the leg, injuring him. The other round was fired at international human rights activists who were observing the demonstration, striking a human rights activist in the head. Eygi died shortly after being transported to a local hospital in Nablus.”
CNN also reports: “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. 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.”
That article adds: “Chen said she believed Eygi was targeted. ‘They have weapons from America. It is not an accident that they hit her in the head.”
Student activist
The Seattle Times reports: “Teachers and peers at UW [University of Washington] reeled from the news Friday and remembered Eygi, who was a Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Central College student before attending UW.”
The Guardian also reports: “Eygi was an organizer with the Popular University for Gaza Liberated Zone on UW campus [said Aria Fani, a professor at UW]. ‘She was an instrumental part of protesting the university’s ties to Boeing and Israel and spearheading negotiations with the UW administration,’ Fani said.”
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has highlighted that Boeing, that has a production facility in Seattle, manufactures F-15 fighter jets, Apache AH-64 attack helicopters, GBU-39 bombs and the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits for MK-80 bombs that are being used by the IDF against the Palestinian people.
Fani also says “she was very critical of US foreign policy and white supremacy in the US, and Israel was no exception” and that she had previously protested the building of the oil pipeline on the Standing Rock reservation and was critical of Turkish nationalism and violence against Kurdish minorities.
Photo: Eygi at her graduation in June at the University of Washington. Photo in The Guardian courtesy of Aria Fani.
Photo of Ayşenur at protest.
UN calls for full investigation
The BBC reports: “The United Nations has called for a ‘full investigation’ into the killing of a US-Turkish woman in the occupied West Bank during a protest on Friday. Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN secretary general, said: ‘We would want to see a full investigation of the circumstances and that people should be held accountable.’ The US has urged Israel to investigate the incident. [But] in a statement, Ms Eygi’s family said that given the circumstances, an Israeli investigation ‘is not adequate’ and called on the US to conduct an independent investigation and ‘ensure full accountability for the guilty parties.’”
Tweet from the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.
The ISM
The International Solidarity Movement describes itself as “a Palestinian-led organization that provides protective presence and solidarity in the West Bank. The ISM was founded in 2002, and has maintained a steady presence in Palestine ever since, supporting the Palestinian popular struggle against the occupation.”
Their work includes “accompanying children to school and farmers to their fields, residing with or near families whose homes are threatened with eviction, demolition or harassment by settlers” and documenting the “countless human rights and international law violations by the Israeli military and settlers.”
The Guardian notes: “Eygi is the third ISM activist to have been killed since 2000, according to the Associated Press. In 2003, while protesting the Israeli military’s destruction of houses in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Rachel Corrie – a 23-year-old US citizen from Olympia in Washington state – was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer. A month later, Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old Briton, was shot in the head while he was helping Palestinian children cross a street in Rafah. He died the following year.”
Middle East Monitor notes: “Her death comes as Israel continued its devastating offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 40,900 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 94,400 others since a Hamas attack on 7 October last year.”
Peace Brigades International-Canada extends its solidarity and sympathy to the family, friends and ISM colleagues of Ayşenur.
For more about the International Solidarity Movement, click here.
Further reading: 1,358 Palestinian human rights defenders may have been killed over the last 10 months (PBI-Canada, August 17, 2024).