Blinken slams Israel after IDF says its forces likely killed American activist

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has called for “fundamental changes” to the way Israeli forces operate in the occupied West Bank after the killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest last week.

Blinken’s sharply worded rebuke came after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday that it was “highly likely” that Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire.”

In its initial inquiry into the incident, the IDF said that the shot was not aimed at the activist, but at “the key instigator” of a “violent riot” at the Beita Junction where it said Palestinians burned tires and hurled rocks at Israeli security forces. It didn’t name the alleged instigator.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), with whom Eygi had been volunteering, said that its protest on September 6 was peaceful.

At a news conference in London on Tuesday, Blinken said Eygi’s killing was “unprovoked and unjustified” and demanded changes to the rules of engagement of Israel forces operating in the West Bank.

“No one, no one should be shot and killed for attending a protest. No one should have to put their life at risk just for expressing their views,” he said. “Now we have the second American citizen killed at the hands of Israeli security forces. It’s not acceptable. It has to change. And we’ll be making that clear to the senior-most members of the Israeli government.”

Blinken added that the United States had “long seen” reports of Israeli forces ignoring extremist settler violence against Palestinians and reports of excessive force by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

Violence from the Israeli offensive in Gaza since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has spilled into the occupied West Bank in recent months.

In recent months, the US has unveiled a series of sanctions targeting Israel settler violence against Palestinians.

The IDF began a major raid in multiple parts of the territory last month, bulldozing highways and razing buildings in the process. OIn Tuesday, at least two Palestinians – a man and a woman – were killed during an Israeli military incursion in the city of Tulkarem, according to the Ministry of Health in Ramallah.

Israeli troops and settlers have killed 692 Palestinians, including 158 children, in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.

The family of the 26-year-old activist said they were “deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional,” reiterating calls to US leaders for an independent investigation into her death.

Eygi, who was born in Turkey, was shot while taking part in a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian village of Beita. All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law.

She was a recent graduate of the University of Washington, and had been volunteering with the same pro-Palestinian activist group as Rachel Corrie, a US citizen killed in 2003 while attempting to stop an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing Palestinian homes in Gaza.

Eygi’s family, who have previously blamed Israel for her killing, said the findings of the Israeli inquiry were “wholly inadequate.” “This cannot be misconstrued as anything except a deliberate, targeted and precise attack by the military against an unarmed civilian,” the family said.

The ISM also dismissed Israel’s “specious claim” that Eygi was unintentionally hit by IDF fire, describing the slain activist as “one of the hundreds of thousands of martyrs Israel has killed over decades of ethnic cleansing, displacement, and genocide.”

“The military’s account of the events is blindly based on the accomplices’ version, which completely contradicts the testimonies of multiple eyewitnesses, who the military did not even contact,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday.

“All eyewitnesses said immediately following the killing that the scene where Aysenur was killed was completely quiet, and that there could have been no excuse to open fire, let alone directly hitting a woman peacefully standing in an olive grove.” — CNN