Israeli security forces mischaracterised the events that led up to the fatal shooting of a Turkish-American protester in the West Bank, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed that their soldiers were targeting the leader of a violent protest when they shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement who had come from her native Washington state to Israel to protest against settlements in the West Bank.
In a statement, Joe Biden cited evidence provided in the IDF’s initial inquiry, saying the “preliminary investigation has indicated that it was the result of a tragic error resulting from an unnecessary escalation”. The US president also told reporters that Eygi was killed probably as the result of a bullet ricochet, and “apparently it was an accident”.
But a Washington Post report said that protests had subsided before Israeli forces opened fire, indicating that there was no immediate threat to the soldiers and little justification to target Eygi or any other protesters with live fire.
According to the investigation, Eygi was “shot more than a half-hour after the height of confrontations in Beita, and some 20 minutes after protesters had moved down the main road – more than 200 yards (183 metres) away from Israeli forces”.
The potential target, a Palestinian teenager who was wounded by Israeli fire, was standing about 18 metres away from Eygi, witnesses told the Post.
The investigation was based on accounts from 13 witnesses and more than 50 videos and photos provided by the International Solidarity Movement, as well as Faz3a, another Palestinian advocacy group.
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The IDF did not reply to the Post’s requests for comment about why live ammunition was used against the protesters or the identity of the “instigator” of the violent protest cited by the IDF in its initial inquiry.
As a rule, the IDF investigates itself in cases where protesters in the region are targeted with violence at the hands of its soldiers. Eygi’s family and other human rights advocates have publicly demanded that the US open an independent inquiry into her death, but a state department spokesperson said earlier this week that there were no plans at the moment to do so.
The Post report did describe a chaotic scene after Friday prayers in the town of Beita, where young Palestinians put up barricades and threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, who, in turn, opened fire with teargas and live ammunition. But the protests had died down and Eygi had retreated to an olive grove far from the soldiers, about 180 metres away, before she was hit by a bullet in the head, killing her.
After Biden’s remarks, Eygi’s family said in a statement: “President Biden is still calling her killing an accident based only on the Israeli military’s story. This is not only insensitive and false, it is complicit in the Israeli military’s agenda to take Palestinian land and whitewash the killing of an American.”
Biden, in his statement, did not order an independent inquiry and appeared to indicate that US officials were making their conclusions based entirely on evidence provided by the IDF.
Biden said the US has “had full access to Israel’s preliminary investigation, and expects continued access as the investigation continues, so that we can have confidence in the result”.