Killing of US-Turkish citizen shows high price of expressing solidarity with Palestinians in occupied West Bank

Special Killing of US-Turkish citizen shows high price of expressing solidarity with Palestinians in occupied West Bank
Public anger was sparked by the killing of Aysenur Ezgi in Israeli shooting. (Reuters)
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Updated 11 September 2024
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Killing of US-Turkish citizen shows high price of expressing solidarity with Palestinians in occupied West Bank

Killing of US-Turkish citizen shows high price of expressing solidarity with Palestinians in occupied West Bank
  • Aysenur Ezgi Eygi believed shot by Israeli troops while taking part in peaceful protest against settlement expansion
  • International community has condemned the wave of attacks on Palestinians and their allies since Oct. 7 last year

LONDON: On Saturday afternoon, two young women lay side by side in a hospital morgue in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Unknown to each other but united in death, one was the victim of the increasingly unbridled Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.

The other had died at the hands of the Israeli military while protesting against that very same violence.

The first to die was Bana Amjad Bakr, a 13-year-old girl killed on Friday night in her bedroom at home in Qaryut, a village 15 km south of Nablus. She was reportedly hit by a stray bullet fired by Israeli forces.

According to Yesh Din, an Israeli non-profit organization that advocates for the human rights of Palestinians living under occupation, Bakr was fatally wounded after dozens of settlers, “protected” by Israeli soldiers, stormed her village.

The teenager was taken to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, where she was pronounced dead.




Nablus Governor Ghassan Daghlas (3-R) stands in front of the bodies of Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26 (L) and 13-year-old Palestinian Bana Baker at a hospital morgue in Nablus in the occupied West Bank on September 7, 2024. (AFP)

But the tragedy of her passing and her family’s grief would have gone unnoticed by the wider world — were it not for events that unfolded the following day.

On Saturday morning, a Turkish-born American citizen was shot in the head by Israeli troops in the village of Beita, just 8 km north of where Bana had been mortally wounded in Qaryut.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old from Washington state, had been taking part for the first time in the regular weekly protest organized by the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement against the town’s expanding Jewish settlement.

Just three months ago, Eygi had graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she had studied psychology and Middle Eastern languages and cultures.




Palestinian activists lift a banner and portraits of slain Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi during a funeral procession in Nablus in the occupied West Bank on September 9, 2024. (AFP)

In a statement, her family said she had been active in pro-Palestinian protests on campus and had felt morally compelled to travel to the West Bank and “stand in solidarity with Palestinian civilians.”

According to eyewitness accounts, Eygi and other protesters had taken refuge in an olive grove after Israeli soldiers fired tear gas as the peaceful protest began to disperse.

“The demonstration, which primarily involved men and children praying, was met with force from the Israeli army stationed on a hill,” said a spokesperson for ISM.

“Initially, the army fired a large amount of tear gas and then began using live ammunition.”

It was then that Eygi, who appeared to be deliberately targeted by an Israeli sniper, was shot in the back of the head.




Israeli forces take position following a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the village of Qaryut on September 15, 2023. (AFP)

ISM denied “repeated false claims” that demonstrators had been throwing rocks. “All eye-witness accounts refute this claim,” said the spokesperson.

“Aysenur was more than 200 meters away from where the Israeli soldiers were, and there were no confrontations there at all in the minutes before she was shot.

“Regardless, from such a distance neither she nor anyone else could possibly have been perceived as posing any threat. She was killed in cold blood.”

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It was Eygi’s death, and not Bakr’s, that prompted international outrage and global headlines. A spokesperson for the UN secretary-general demanded a “full investigation of the circumstances” and accountability for the death of the dual American-Turkish citizen.

The US government also called for an investigation, with a National Security Council spokesperson saying the White House was “deeply disturbed by the tragic death of an American citizen.”




Members of the Palestinian security forces carry the body of 13-year-old Bana Amjad Bakr during her funeral in Nablus. (AFP)

Meanwhile, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it held the Israeli government responsible for Eygi’s death and pledged to bring those who killed her to justice.

Although such killings add impetus to the growing international alarm over Israel’s behavior, in Gaza and the West Bank, the death of a single foreign activist at the hands of Israeli soldiers frequently garners more global coverage than multiple killings of Palestinians.

As ISM pointed out, “the human rights activist, who we consider a martyr in the struggle, was the 18th demonstrator to be killed in Beita since 2020” — the youngest of whom was just 13 years old.

Ghassan Daghlas, the governor of Nablus, paid his respects to Eygi and Bakr in an emotional visit to the morgue in Rafidia hospital on Saturday. “Both were killed by the same bullets,” he said.

“We call on the international community to stop the insane war on Palestine. Bullets do not differentiate between activists and a Palestinian child.”




People check a burnt car a day after an attack by Jewish settlers on the village of Jit near Nablus that left a 23-year-old man dead and others with critical gunshot wounds, on August 16, 2024. (AFP)

Over the years, several American nationals have lost their lives while protesting in solidarity with Palestinians. One of the most infamous cases occurred more than 20 years ago, in March 2003, when another member of ISM was killed.

Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old activist from Washington state, was crushed by an armored military bulldozer during a protest against the demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians do not forget their friends. Many children born after Corrie’s death carry her first name and a street in Ramallah is named for her. But until now it has been difficult to conclude that sacrifices such as hers have not been in vain.

The marked difference in the response of the US government then and now shows how less tolerant global opinion has become toward Israel’s behavior.

US CITIZENS KILLED BY ISRAELIS

  • May 2003: Rachel Corrie, 23, crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer during Gaza protest.
  • May 31, 2010: Furkan Dogan, 19, shot by Israeli troops during Gaza Flotilla raid.
  • Jan. 13, 2022: Omar Assad, 78, died in Israeli custody in the West Bank.
  • May 11, 2022: Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, shot by Israeli troops while reporting in the West Bank.
  • Jan. 20, 2024: Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, 17, shot by Israeli gunmen in the West Bank.
  • Feb. 10, 2024: Mohammad Ahmad Khdour, 17, shot by Israeli gunmen in the West Bank.
  • Sept. 6, 2024: Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, shot by Israeli troops during West Bank protest.

Back in 2003, 77 members of the US Congress signed a resolution “expressing sympathy for the loss of Rachel Corrie in the Palestinian village of Rafah in the Gaza Strip on March 16, 2003,” calling on the US government “to undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation” into her death.

No such investigation followed. But following the killing of Eygi this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “when we have more info, we will share it, make it available and, as necessary, we’ll act on it.”

Eygi is at least the third US citizen known to have been killed in the West Bank since October. In February, Palestinian-American Mohammad Ahmad Alkhdour, 17, was reportedly shot twice by Israeli forces northwest of Jerusalem.

In January, another 17-year-old Palestinian-American national, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, was killed in similar circumstances.




A Palestinian girl holds posters of US peace activist Rachel Corrie during a protest marking the anniversary of her death at a refugee camp in Rafah on March 16, 2013. (AFP)

The settler movement, ultimately responsible for the deaths at the weekend of both Bakr and Eygi, may yet prove to be the undoing of an Israeli government that has not only given it free rein to expand settlements, but has also armed it to the teeth.

Toward the end of last month, it emerged that the head of Israel’s security agency had written to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing the extremist settler movement of terrorism.

Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet, warned that the increasingly violent actions of the “hilltop youth” were out of control and “a large stain on Judaism and on all of us.”

He added: “The damage to Israel, especially at this time, and to the majority of the settlers is indescribable: A loss of global legitimacy even among our best friends.”

Bar blamed nationalist politicians, in particular Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. By encouraging and arming the extremists, they were “willing to jeopardize the state’s security and its very existence” in the pursuit of their ideological ambitions, he said.




Palestinian medics transport a man who was injured in a reported attack by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, into Rafidia Hospital in Nablus on August 31, 2024. (AFP)

International Crisis Group recently reported there had been a record 1,246 attacks on Palestinians by settlers in the West Bank since Oct. 7, causing 21 deaths, hundreds of injuries, and, as part of a deliberate policy to sabotage livelihoods, the systematic destruction of 23,000 trees.

“Settler violence is at an all-time high, with Israeli settlers harassing, terrorizing and killing Palestinians across the West Bank in greater numbers and with greater frequency and fervor,” Mairav Zonszein, the ICG’s senior Israel analyst, said in a statement on Friday.

“They are emboldened by a government committed to deepening control over the West Bank and foiling a Palestinian state.”

She added: “To stem settler violence, the US and other Western countries should target not only individual settlers but state entities and policies that bolster the settlement enterprise.”

But in weakening support for Israel in the West, ultimately it may be the reckless behavior of the settlers and their political supporters — and the death of foreign activists like Eygi — that will backfire on Netanyahu and his government.

 


Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary
Updated 08 October 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary
  • Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks
  • Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday
  • The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.

 

 


Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN
Updated 08 October 2024
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Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN
  • When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response”
  • Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave

UNITED NATIONS: Israel hosted an event at the United Nations on Monday to mark one year since a deadly Hamas attack, vowing to fight until all hostages held in Gaza by the Palestinian militants are freed and assailing the world body for failing to condemn the massacre.
“The UN has failed in its most basic mandate to protect the innocent and condemn evil. The resolutions that the UN did pass were about the situation in Gaza,” said Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon, referring to action taken by the 15-member Security Council and the 193-member General Assembly.
During the shock Hamas rampage a year ago some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. More than 100 hostages remain held in Gaza by Hamas.
Israel’s ally the United States vetoed a draft Security Council resolution on Oct. 18, 2023, that would have condemned Hamas and urged Gaza aid access. The US had argued it needed more time to broker humanitarian access and was disappointed the text did not mention Israel’s right to self-defense.
“There are those in the Security Council, and outside, who fail to condemn Hamas’ atrocities or even say the word Hamas,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Oct. 7 commemorative event on Monday.
“There are those in the region who have sought to build on Hamas’ actions and are now pushing the Middle East to the precipice of a broader war — terrorist groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah,” she said, also accusing Iran of seeking to take advantage of the situation to advance a “destructive agenda.”
The Hamas attack triggered Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave where authorities say more than 41,000 people have been killed. The conflict has raised fears of all-out regional war, pitting Israel against Iran and the militant groups that it backs.
In recent weeks Israel killed the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and began a ground assault against the Iran-backed militant group. Iran then attacked Israel in a missile strike.
When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response.”
Amid animosity between Israel’s government and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres — who was barred last week by Israel’s foreign minister from entering the country — UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said he did not believe any UN officials had been invited to Israel’s event at UN headquarters.
In a video released over the weekend to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, Guterres said: “This is a day for the global community to repeat in the loudest voice our utter condemnation of the abhorrent acts of Hamas, including the taking of hostages.”

 


’Year of suffering’: Gazans tired on October 7 anniversary

’Year of suffering’: Gazans tired on October 7 anniversary
Updated 08 October 2024
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’Year of suffering’: Gazans tired on October 7 anniversary

’Year of suffering’: Gazans tired on October 7 anniversary
  • A year on, Israel has yet to achieve one of its main objectives: securing the return of all those taken hostage on October 7, 2023
  • Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have endured hardship, with no signs of relief, even after Israel reassigned divisions to the north of the country where troops are fighting Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: One year after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel unleashed war in Gaza, the Palestinian territory is unrecognizable and its residents are exhausted by displacement and shortages, with no end in sight.
“It felt like the first day of the war all over again,” said Khaled Al-Hawajri, 46, as the Israeli forces bombarded his Gaza neighborhood on Monday, even as Israel marked the anniversary of Hamas attack.
“Last night we were terrorized by the bombardments from quadcopters and tank shells,” said Hawajri, who has been displaced 10 times with his family of seven in the past year.
“We have endured a whole year in the north under bombardment, terror, and fear in the hearts of my children,” he said, adding he had staying in Gaza’s devastated north because “there is no safe place in the entire Strip.”
On Monday, Gaza City was barely recognizable, ravaged by relentless air strikes and fighting.
Residents walked along sand-covered streets stripped of pavements, with buildings either destroyed or left without facades, while piles of rubble littered the roads.
With fuel in short supply and expensive, car traffic was almost nonexistent. Most people walked, cycled or used donkey carts.
“There is no electricity or petroleum products. Even firewood is not available. Food is almost non-existent,” said 64-year-old Hussam Mansour, speaking from a street in Gaza City, surrounded by piles of rubble and sand.
The United Nations says 92 percent of Gaza’s roads and more than 84 percent of its health facilities have been damaged or destroyed in the war.

Mansour and his sons have all been displaced, and his apartment building was destroyed in an air strike.
“Now when I walk the streets, I do not recognize them anymore,” he said.
Like Hawajri and Mansour, Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have endured hardship, with no signs of relief, even after Israel reassigned divisions to the north of the country where troops are fighting Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
About 90 percent of the population has been displaced at least once, the United Nations says.
“Last night was one of the hardest nights of the war, as if the war had just begun!” said 46-year-old Muhammad Al-Muqayyid, displaced from the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
“I never imagined the war would last this long,” he said.
“A year has gone and we have seen every kind of suffering — disease, hunger, danger and loss.”
The Israeli military has been fighting Hamas in Gaza since the unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,909 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The UN acknowledges the figures to be reliable.
A year on, Israel has yet to achieve one of its main objectives: securing the return of all those taken hostage on October 7, 2023.
Of the 251 captured that day, 97 are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Israeli military is still carrying out operations in Gaza to free the hostages and crush Hamas, in power since 2007.
“There was a sudden ground invasion by tanks, and people were rushing out of their homes without taking anything with them, just carrying their children and running through the streets with fire and shells raining down on them,” Muqayyid said, referring to an Israeli military operation in northern Gaza on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Hamas keeps fighting. Its armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said it launched a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv on Monday.
Samah Ali, a 32-year-old woman displaced in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, said rocket launches were predictable on this day.
“Suddenly, we heard the sound of rockets launching, and everyone in the camp came out to see where they had been fired from,” she said, adding some people fled fearing retaliatory Israeli strikes.
“It’s certain that the occupation army will return and strike.”
 

 


Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’

Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’
Updated 07 October 2024
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Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’

Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’
  • “Supporters of the occupying regime, especially the United States, have been complicit in the crimes of this regime” against Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis, it said

TEHRAN: Iran praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as a decisive moment for Palestinians on Monday as it marked the first anniversary of the deadliest attack on Israeli soil.
“The operation on October 7, 2023... was a turning point in the history of the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and oppression of the Zionist regime,” Iran’s foreign ministry said.
It described the attack as a release of “the Palestinian people’s pent-up historic anger against eight decades of occupation, murder and genocide.”
The statement also accused Israel’s allies of supporting these actions.
“Supporters of the occupying regime, especially the United States, have been complicit in the crimes of this regime” against Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis, it said.
It added that they “must be held accountable for supplying weapons and supporting the Zionist regime.”
 

 


Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight

Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight
Updated 07 October 2024
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Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight

Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight
  • Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘As long as the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country, we will continue to fight’

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at an official memorial marking the anniversary of October 7 attack Monday, vowed to press on fighting until achieving the “sacred mission” of the war against Hamas.
“As long as the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country, we will continue to fight. As long as our hostages are still in Gaza, we will continue to fight,” Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded television address, vowing not to give up on the “sacred mission.”