Category: Reports - Page 5 - International Solidarity Movement

A Response to the Killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi (From Cindy and Craig Corrie)

The Corries are the parents of Rachel Corrie, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who was killed by the Israeli military on March 16, 2003, as she stood to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah, Gaza Strip.

September 6, 2024

On Friday, a soldier in the Israeli military killed American and Turkish citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. Aysenur was a May graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle, a student of psychology, an activist, and a recent volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank. Our family is saddened and outraged by the heinous act that killed her. We mourn with Aysenur’s family and friends and hold them in our hearts in this most devastating time.

According to the International Solidarity Movement, Aysenur is the 18th protester killed in the Palestinian village of Beita since 2020. Seventeen Palestinians have been killed while demonstrating against construction of illegal Israeli outposts on the village’s land. While we deplore each of these deaths, Aysenur was the first American killed in Beita, and our government has an obligation to act on her behalf.

Our country and the international community must ensure that the Government of Israel is held accountable for Aysenur’s killing. In the cases of other Americans killed by the Israeli military, including in our daughter Rachel’s case, the U.S. Government has been unable, or unwilling, to hold those responsible to account. We need to do better this time.

Many individuals currently in US government were kind, helpful, and supportive of our family’s efforts on behalf of Rachel. Prior to becoming Secretary of State, Antony Blinken was active in seeking accountability for her killing. We understand he was even more involved in the case of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. But years have passed and there has been no accountability for either of these killings. While serving at the Department of State in 2003, Dr. Bill Burns, now Director of the CIA, engaged with Rachel’s case and encouraged our family’s first visit to Gaza. U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Congressman Adam Smith, all from Washington State, worked with our family toward accountability for over a decade. While helpful with private statements and diplomatic communications with the Israeli Government, these individual efforts never had the full force of the U.S. Government behind them. Therefore, the ultimate goals of a credible investigation and accountability were never met. These public officials do have unique experience, influence, and power to hold Israel accountable – if they are willing to use it.

Aysenur and her family deserve better than White House and Department of State platitudes and calls for Israeli investigations that never result in truth, action, or enforcement of U.S. law. We are demanding more. The time for accountability is now.

Cindy and Craig Corrie

Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice

Statement from the family of Ayşenur Eygi

Today our family and our community are in shock and grief, as we wrestle with the reality that our beloved Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi is gone. Like the olive tree she lay beneath where she took her last breaths, Ayşenur was strong, beautiful, and nourishing. Her presence in our lives was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military.

Ayşenur was a loving daughter, sister, partner, and aunt. She was gentle, brave, silly, supportive, and a ray of sunshine. She wore her heart on her sleeves. She felt a deep responsibility to serve others and lived a life of caring for those in need with action. She was a fiercely passionate human rights activist her whole life — a steadfast and staunch advocate of justice.

Ayşenur just turned 26 and graduated three months ago from the University of Washington, where she studied Psychology and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures. She was active on campus in student-led protests, advocating for human dignity, and calling for an end to the violence against the people of Palestine. Ayşenur felt compelled to travel to the West Bank to stand in solidarity with Palestinian civilians who continue to endure ongoing repressing and violence.

A U.S. citizen, Ayşenur was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video shows came from an Israeli military shooter. We welcome the White House’s statement of condolences, but given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate.

We call on President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Secretary of State Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties. We ask the public for privacy as we grieve and try to make sense of the unimaginable tragedy that is Ayşenur’s killing.

Statement issued by Beita municipality regarding the martyrdom of the foreign solidarity activist on Mount Sabih

‎The Beita Municipality condemns in the strongest terms the crime of execution committed by the occupation forces against the American solidarity activist of Turkish origin, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, by firing live bullets at her and hitting her directly in the head, where she fell on the land of our town of Beita, to be her last message of solidarity written in blood against injustice and tyranny.

The martyr Ayşenur passed away while carrying out her noble message, in solidarity and support for the legitimate and just rights of the Palestinian people, and in confronting the occupation’s plans to settle on Mount Sabih, this authentic part of the town of Beita.

Beita Municipality demands that the American administration in particular, and the international community in general, exert real pressure on the Israeli government to remove the settlement outpost on Mount Sabih by an extremist group of settlers, which has led since its establishment over the past three years to an explosion of the situation in Beita and its surroundings, leading to the martyrdom of fifteen citizens, the last of whom was the American citizen Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, in addition to wounding thousands of citizens.

Beita Municipality calls on the international community and the American administration in particular to open an investigation committee into the assassination of the American citizen who was killed by American bullets at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces, and also calls on the international community to intervene urgently to stop the crimes committed in our town of Beita and in all Palestinian areas.

Beita Municipality extends its most sincere condolences to her family, friends and loved ones, and we ask God to inspire them all with patience and solace.

What is Happening in the Northern West Bank?

4 September 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Northern West Bank

By Diana Khwaelid

The radical Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has renewed his incitement to impose collective punishment on citizens in the occupied West Bank, including the killing of detainees in occupation prisons.

In the early hours of August 28, 2024, Israel announced the start of a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, specifically targeting three cities and their refugee camps: Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas. Israel has named this operation “The Summer Camps,” while the resistance factions in the West Bank, particularly the Jerusalem Brigades, have called it “The Terror of the Camps”. This Israeli operation is the largest since the “Protective Fence” operation in 2002. According to the *Yedioth Ahronoth* newspaper, a full military squad was mobilized after several weeks of preparation. Hebrew Channel 14 confirmed that the army had deployed thousands of soldiers from various special units, including the use of military helicopters and heavy weapons.

The operation began with a simultaneous Israeli incursion into the three cities, using huge bulldozers and air cover. The Israeli occupation forces closed all roads leading to the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, but encountered armed resistance from fighters who attempted to prevent further advancement. In response to the armed clashes on the ground, Israel resorted to airstrikes, bombing three different locations: the Far’a refugee camp (Tubas), the Nour Shams refugee camp (Tulkarm), and a site near the Jenin refugee camp. These bombings killed several resistance fighters and wounded others. The first day ended with the assassination of nine resistance fighters, most of them from the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades, and the wounding of an Israeli soldier amid massive destruction to the infrastructure of several targeted cities.

A week ago, the occupation forces began a large-scale operation in the northern West Bank under the pretext of dismantling resistance cells. Since then, resistance fighters have been confronting them with explosive devices and gunfire, resulting in the deaths and injuries of several Israeli soldiers.

The operation has so far resulted in the martyrdom of 33 Palestinians and the injury of 130 others, causing significant destruction to the infrastructure in the cities and camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, and Tubas. The Israeli occupation forces have not only liquidated several resisters in the Nur Shams refugee camp, northeast of Tulkarm, Jenin Camp, Tubas, and Nablus but also renewed their incursion into the city of Tulkarm on the evening of Monday, September 2. This time, they stationed themselves in the Tulkarm refugee camp, where the military operation is still ongoing.

The residents of the camps in the northern West Bank, particularly in the Tulkarm and Jenin camps, are experiencing a state of fear and terror. On Monday evening, Israeli occupation snipers targeted a civilian and his 15-year-old son. The father was transferred to the hospital, but the child died while attempting to leave the camp.

Israeli special forces also surrounded a Palestinian house in the village of Dhnaba, east of Tulkarm, and demanded the surrender of two Palestinian youths. According to eyewitnesses, they used a Palestinian child, no older than 16, as a human shield. The forces subsequently killed the two Palestinians, seized their bodies, and confiscated their private vehicle.

The Israeli occupation forces are also obstructing the movement of medical crews in the northern West Bank cities, particularly Tulkarm and Jenin, preventing them from entering the camps, transporting the injured, and assisting Palestinian patients in humanitarian cases.

The house that was surrounded and two Palestinians were executed in the village of Dhnabu

Another Crime of the Israeli Occupation: Five Killed in Nur Shams Camp

28 August 2024 | International Solidarity Movement | Tulkarm Camp

*Nur Shams Camp – Tulkarm – West Bank*
*27-Aug-2024*
*By Diana Khwaelid*

On the evening of Monday 26, Israeli occupying forces carried out an aerial bombardment through an Israeli drone strike on one of the houses in the Nur Shams refugee camp, northeast of the city. After the residents of the camp gathered to assess what had happened, the drone fired another shell at the area. Palestinian Civil Defense crews rushed to the scene, along with medical teams.

More than five injured Palestinians were transferred from the camp to the Thabit Thabit Government Hospital in the city. According to the Palestinian Health Organization, five Palestinians were killed, two of them minors, including one from the city of Qalqilya, who was with other young men in the camp.

The martyrs are Adnan Al-Jaber, Mohammed Sheikh Yusuf, Mohammed Aliyan, and Muhannad Qarawi, all from Nur Shams refugee camp, and Jibril Jibril from Qalqilya.

It is reported that martyr Muhannad Qarawi is the brother of Moamen Qarawi, who was killed near the village of Bala by an Israeli airstrike while he was inside a car with other young men on the 3rd of this month.

It should be noted that both Muhannad Qarawi and Jibril Jibril had recently been freed from captivity as part of the freedom deal between Hamas and Israel.

The 20-year-old martyr Jibril Jibril, from Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, had been pursued by Israeli occupation forces attempting to arrest him again. He decided to go to the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm to resist the occupation. However, fate led him to be martyred there alongside his comrades, both in captivity and in the field.

A state of sadness and anger swept through the city of Tulkarm, especially in the Nur Shams camp, as the Israeli occupation forces continued to carry out assassinations of Palestinian youth through drone strikes in Tulkarm, Nur Shams camp, Jenin, Qalqilya, and Tubas, all in the northern West Bank.

On Tuesday morning, the city of Tulkarem announced a general commercial strike and a state of mourning in honor of the five martyrs who were killed in the Israeli airstrike on Monday evening, the 26.

Hundreds of Palestinians participated in the funeral of the five martyrs. Jibril Jibril’s body was transferred to his hometown of Qalqilya, where his family and friends bade a final farewell. They prayed for him in the Return Garden in the camp before he was buried in the cemetery.

According to the Palestinian Health Organization, there have been more than 600 martyrs in the West Bank as of October 7.