Tag: west bank

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.

The Israeli occupation forces use a warplane to carry out an assassination in Nur Shams Camp

By Diana Khwaelid

Tulkarm-Nur Shams refugee camp

30 – Jun – 2024

The Israeli occupying forces carried out an assassination in partnership with the Israeli commander in charge of the north-central areas of the West Bank and The Israeli internal security service, an assassination in broad daylight in the Nur Shams refugee camp northeast of the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank.

At about 2: 00pm an Israeli warplane bombed a Palestinian house in the Al-Manshiyeh area of the camp,with Palestinian resistance members inside. The bombing resulted in the death of a Palestinian man, and injured five others. Two of them are in serious condition.

According to Palestinian eyewitnesses, there are at least four Palestinian houses damaged by this shelling, where women, children, and men were living inside and whose lives were threatenede as a result of shrapnel that penetrated the walls of their houses and the windows were broken from the force of the shelling.

A resident of Nour Shams Camp looks out of her window after the Israeli attack — A resident of Nur Shams Camp looks out of her window after the Israeli attack

A resident of Nour Shams sits amongst shrapnel strewn inside his home after the Israeli bombardment — A resident of Nur Shams sits amongst shrapnel strewn inside his home after the Israeli bombardment

The Palestinian medical and civil defense teams rushed to secure the house and the area. They recovered the injured and the body of the Palestinian martyr Saad Jaber, 24, who died as a result of his injury.

The residents of Nur al-Shams camp are living in a state of fear due to the increase in Israeli attacks on the camp over the past few months.

Hundreds of Palestinians mourned the Palestinian martyr Said Ezzat Jaber, 24, who Israeli occupation forces tried to assassinate more than once. The last time a few days ago, but he miraculously survived these attempts. Said is considered one of the most prominent Palestinian resisters in the camp and he died defending the camp today. The people of the camp are mourning him and saying goodbye for the last time.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, there are at least 116 martyrs in the city of Tulkarm since October 7.

The funeral of a martyr from Nour Shams — The funeral of a martyr from Nur Shams

Who is Holding Israel Accountable for its Crimes?

November 21 Tulkarm, Occupied West Bank

On Tuesday evening, the Israeli occupation forces carried out a military operation that lasted for 10 continuous hours resulting in the killing of 6 Palestinians and the destruction of the camp’s infrastructure – streets, and roads, shelling of the al-Balaawneh Diwan, and two other houses.

Occupation forces destruction of Tulkarm

While the residents of the camp were enjoying the calm on Tuesday evening around 11: 00, the residents of the city of Tulkarm, and the residents of the Tulkarm refugee camp specifically, woke up due to the news of the storming of dozens of military vehicles to the city and to the camp. Eyewitnesses said that about 40 military vehicles, including jeeps and D9 bulldozers, stormed the Tulkarm refugee camp.

Israeli snipers were deployed everywhere, especially on the roofs of Palestinian houses inside the camp and its surroundings, as well as inside buildings under construction in the city, targeting anything that moved.

The Israeli occupation bulldozers began bulldozing the main roads in the camp as usual, destroying the infrastructure as they did in the previous incursion, and destroying the water and sewage network.

An Israeli drone also targeted the building (Diwan Al-balaawneh), a public property of the camp, and targeted those inside it. Four Palestinians were killed who had been inside the building. Two more Palestinians were killed by Israeli snipers.

Three houses were destroyed with moderate damage, a car was burned and three other cars were damaged, belonging to two civilian residents of the camp.

Feelings of fear, tension, and despair prevailed among the residents of the camp because the Israeli occupation forces continued to storm the camp, kill Palestinians, and destroy the infrastructure, streets, and roads in the camp.

Hundreds of Palestinians participated in the funeral of the bodies of the 6 martyrs in the camp. Their bodies were transferred to their families’ home for a final farewell look, after which their bodies were transferred to the UNRWA school to pray for them. And because of their large number, the number of camp residents participating in the funeral alike. The camp residents carried the bodies of the martyrs on their shoulders and chanted words expressing anger, unity and resistance to the occupation inlegitimate ways. Until they arrive at the cemetery of Denabaa.

Tulkarm residents gather for the funeral of 6 martyrs of the occupation army raid.

The Israeli occupying forces continue to commit and intensify their crimes against the Palestinian people in the West Bank, in particular in the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the number of martyrs of the West Bank since October 7 has reached more than 215.