Aysenur Ezgi Eygi: US response to Israeli killing of Turkish-American draws sharp criticism
The Biden administration has faced a stream of criticism over its response to Israel's killing of US-Turkish citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, after it refrained from laying blame on Israel and called the targeted killing "tragic".
Ezgi Eygi was amongst a group of activists taking part in a demonstration against expanding Israeli settlements in the Palestinian town of Beita on Friday when she was shot in the head, an eyewitness told Middle East Eye.
The eyewitness said that protesters began retreating shortly before Ezgi Eygi was killed, when soldiers fired tear gas into the crowd.
Then two rounds of live ammunition were fired at the group, one of which struck Ezgi Eygi in the head, the eyewitness said.
"When she was shot, she was standing there doing absolutely nothing with one other woman - it was a deliberate shot because they shot from a very, very, very far distance," said the eyewitness, who did not want to be identified.
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"It was a deliberate shot to the head."
Following the killing, the US State Department said it would gather the information about her death and then make further comment at a later point.
"We deplore this tragic loss. Now, the most important thing to do is gather the facts," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press availability while visiting the Dominican Republic.
"Any actions that we take are driven by the facts. So first things first, let's find out exactly what happened."
The State Department's immediate response drew the ire of Palestinian Americans, who accused the White House of treating the death of Israeli Americans with higher concern than other Americans killed by Israel.
"Hey how'd they die, Matt? Was it magic? Who or what killed Aysenur?" Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said on X, in response to a comment on the killing from State Department spokesperson Matt Miller.
Hey how’d they die, Matt? Was it magic? Who or what killed Aysenur?
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) September 6, 2024
Asking on behalf of Americans who want to know. https://t.co/AX318PBGYC
Palestinian American political analyst Omar Baddar said it was likely Israel's killing would be met with few consequences by the US.
"We're about to get another demonstration of who can kill Americans with impunity," Baddar sad.
The Israeli military just killed an American in the West Bank. Her name is Aysenur Eygi.
— Omar Baddar عمر بدّار (@OmarBaddar) September 6, 2024
Remember: when Hersh Goldberg-Polin was killed, Biden said "Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes."
We're about to get another demonstration of who can kill Americans with impunity. pic.twitter.com/k3dR8QCHiN
Biden/Harris will let Americans be slaughtered with impunity as long as it’s an Israeli bullet. https://t.co/wEZLdz0z94
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) September 6, 2024
The statements so far from the administration are in stark contrast to remarks that followed the Israeli military finding the body of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the Israeli American whose body was found along with the bodies of five other hostages in Gaza.
That incident elicited a direct statement from US President Joe Biden, who said he was "devastated and outraged" over the death.
"It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages," Biden said.
Ezgi Eygi was the second American citizen shot by Israeli forces in Beita within just the past few weeks.
Last month, Middle East Eye reported that Israel's military shot US citizen Amado Sison* in the leg as he was retreating from Israeli soldiers during the same demonstration Ezgi Eyzi attended on Friday.
Following the shooting and his return to the US, Sison said that neither the White House nor any of his state's lawmakers reached out to him.
In the past few years, several Palestinian Americans have either died at the hands of or were killed by Israel's military. Each killing drew similar responses from the Biden administration, in which it called for an investigation but made no apparent attempt to seek justice for those killed.
In 2022, Israeli forces shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera journalist and US citizen, during a military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The killing drew widespread and international condemnation, and the Abu Akleh family along with a cohort of US senators demanded the Biden administration launch an independent investigation into the matter.
However, the State Department announced in July 2022 its conclusion on the killing, saying that while it was likely Israeli fire that killed Abu Akleh, the US had "found no reason to believe that this was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances".
Democracy For The Arab World Now (Dawn) filed a complaint on Thursday against the US State Department in a bid for it to release documents related to allegations of human rights abuses by the Israeli military - dating back to the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.
Dawn said it had filed the complaint in federal court in the District of Columbia to make the records public because of the department's failure to release documents.
Lawsuits can be filed in federal court to release documents that have not been released through FOIA requests.
* A pseudonym was used to protect this individual's identity
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