FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ISM Response to Pres Biden 11 Sept 24 Statement on the Murder of Aysenur Eygi

Israeli Army Push Back Press at Demonstration in Beita,
Israeli soldier harassing the press. July 19, Beita.

Media enquiries: ismtraining [at] riseup.net

On 11 September 2024, President Biden claimed to be “outraged” and “deeply saddened” by Israel’s murder of our comrade Aysenur Eygi, but his actions tell a very different story. While he described the shooting as “unacceptable,” he is refusing the family’s demand for an independent, transparent investigation and continuing to trust the murderers to investigate themselves. Aysenur’s family and the ISM have been clear that we have no confidence in any Israeli investigation, given the Israeli army’s longstanding practice of using investigations as exculpatory coverups. We continue to demand a transparent and independent investigation.

For the United States government to accept the results of Israel’s internal military investigations is a complete dereliction of the US government’s responsibility to its own citizens, but it is nothing new. In 2003, the US did nothing to hold the Israeli killers of Rachel Corrie responsible for that murder. In recent years, the US has done nothing when Palestinian Americans, like Shireen Abu Akleh, have been murdered by Israel. President Biden is pursuing business as usual and allowing Israel to continue to kill both US Citizens and Palestinians with total impunity.

President Biden’s disrespect for Aysenur’s family and community extends even further. Although Aysenur’s family is mourning the death of a US citizen, his administration has yet to pick up the phone and call the family to offer condolences. He asserts that he will remain in contact with Israeli and Palestinian authorities but is unwilling to communicate with the ordinary people who were closest to Aysenur.

In his statement, President Biden asserts that he treats “violent extremist Israeli settlers” and “Palestinian terrorists” equally and implies that the violence in the West Bank is equally the fault of both groups. Both assertions are false. President Biden’s administration arms the violent Israeli extremists, as ISM volunteers can testify to based on our extensive experience doing protective presence work in the West Bank face to face with Israeli settlers armed with US weapons. These are the same weapons that make the US complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. As long as the US continues to send weapons to Israel to kill Palestinians, in Gaza as well as in the West Bank, the US is sustaining the violent extremism of the Israeli settlers and the Israeli government. Meanwhile, President Biden’s false equivalence between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank elides the fact that the current violence has its roots in over a hundred years of settler colonial terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and now genocide, all perpetrated by Israel. Contrary to what President Biden asserts, it is Zionist colonization that is the obstacle to peace.

Ultimately, it is hypocritical for President Biden to attempt to change the focus to Israeli settlers alone, given that the Israeli army killed Aysenur with weapons likely provided by the Biden administration, which is fully aware that they are used to attack people protesting or witnessing demonstrations against illegal settlements. As one American ISM volunteer who wishes to remain anonymous says, “When I was detained by the Israeli army for my nonviolent work with ISM, everything I saw in the army van was stamped with ‘made in the USA’ or ‘property of the USA.'” As Amado Sison, another American citizen shot by Israel in August during the weekly demonstrations in Beita noted, “The money I pay in my taxes as a teacher probably funded the bullet they have run through me.” President Biden and his administration are complicit in Aysenur’s death and his statement today attempts to elide what the whole world knows: Israel’s violence is funded, sustained, supported, and endorsed by the US. Honoring Aysenur’s memory requires a complete change of policy, starting with an independent, transparent investigation and extending to an arms embargo.

ISM Response to Israeli Army Statement on the Murder of Aysenur Eygi

View of Israeli army on the road and on the house’s roof on 6th September 2024

September 10, 2024 – For immediate release

Media inquiries: ismtraining [at] riseup.net

On Friday, September 6, Turkish-American human rights activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) Aysenur Eygi was killed by a single shot to the head from an Israeli sniper while witnessing a demonstration against the illegal Israeli settlement of Evyatar on Beita’s lands. After a brief internal investigation conducted by the Israeli army itself, the Israeli army has released a statement asserting that “the inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her.” The ISM entirely rejects this specious claim and continues to demand an independent investigation of the Israeli army’s killing of our comrade Aysenur Eygi. ISM is joined in this demand by people worldwide who have watched Israel operate with impunity for decades. The world sees through this transparent attempt to conceal the Israeli army’s responsibility for the death of Aysenur Eygi, who is just 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. 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.

According to activists who were present when Aysenur was killed, the Israeli army’s brief statement “includes an array of evident falsehoods, clearly indicating how its investigation is concerned with deflecting fault and avoiding any sort of accountability.” These falsehoods include:

  1. The military version claims Aysenur was not the target of the kill-shot, but rather that she was hit “indirectly and unintentionally”  when a soldier targeted a key instigator. This statement does not align with the physical reality on the ground for several reasons:
    •  It is unclear what the claim that Aysenur was hit “indirectly” is based on, as there is no forensic evidence to back this up this claim.
    • The closest Israeli forces to where Aysenur was when she was shot, were those positioned on a rooftop some 750 feet (220m) away from her, at an elevated position. Considering the distance and the soldiers’ elevation, stones could not have physically been thrown towards the soldiers from the location Aysenur was at when she was shot.
    • There were two separate shots fired, with a few seconds in between them. The first shot hit a metal object and shrapnel hit a Palestinian teenager in the pelvis. Had there been any truth to the military’s false narrative of confrontations taking place where and when Aysenur was shot, reason would have it that he was the main instigator the statement is referring to. However, Aysenur was hit by a second shot, several seconds after the teenager was already down. It was aimed directly at her, as there was no one else around (besides an activist standing next to her) who could have been the target of the shot.
    • The teenager was located further away to the side from the soldiers than Aysenur, so a shot aimed at him could not have possibly hit her, directly or indirectly.
  2. The statement very manipulatively conflates two events that are separate in time and place. The first event was the one during which short confrontations took place soon after the midday prayer at the top of the hill. It was then and there that a few burning tires were placed on the road. The second event is the shooting of Aysenur, which took place more than half an hour later – when there were no confrontations at all – more than 900 feet (274m) from where the burning tires were, and about 750 feet (220 m) from the rooftop where the soldier who shot her was positioned in an elevated, tactically controlling position.
  3. Aysenur was not shot at the Beita Junction. The Beita Junction is here, while she was shot here. The two locations are more than a mile away from each other (1.16 miles, 1.87km).

The Israeli army has a long history of using sham investigations as a method of covering up their human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in Palestine. According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, from a report published jointly with the Palestine Centre for Human Rights, Israel has long been “unwilling and unable” to investigate its soldiers for attacking peaceful protesters. This history of fake investigations as cover-ups goes back decades and has been documented by B’Tselem and other human rights groups.

When ISM activist Rachel Corrie was killed by the Israeli army in Gaza in 2003, a similar sham investigation swiftly cleared the Israeli forces of all responsibility. Rachel Corrie’s parents have spoken out, demanding a thorough investigation into this case. Warning about another coverup, they have said clearly that if an independent, truthful investigation had been conducted 21 years ago, many lives that have been taken by Israel in the ensuing decades could have been saved. Even U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said “The killing of the American activist in the West Bank was unjustified and without provocation on her part, and it is not permissible to shoot someone because he participated in a demonstration.”

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.