The United Nations has called for a “full investigation” into the killing of a US-Turkish woman in the occupied West Bank during a protest on Friday.

Local media reported that Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was shot dead by Israeli forces as she took part in a weekly protest against Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita near Nablus.

Israel’s military said it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area”.

[…]

Dr Fouad Nafaa, head of Rafidia Hospital where Ms Eygi was admitted, confirmed that a US citizen in her mid-20s had died from a “gunshot in the head”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken deplored the “tragic loss”, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan branded the Israeli action “barbaric”.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said Ms Eygi had been “killed by Israeli occupation soldiers in the city of Nablus”.

Before travelling to the Middle East, Ms Eygi had recently graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle.

  • Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was taking part in a protest against Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita, in the occupied West Bank
    Jewish-Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, who was at the protest, told BBC World Service’s Newshour programme he had seen “soldiers on the rooftop aiming”.
    He said he had heard two separate shots, “with like a second or two distance between them”.
    "I looked up, there was a clear line of sight between the soldiers and where we were.

    In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: "During Israeli security forces activity adjacent to the area of Beita, the forces responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.

    Damn, she must have been quite strong, to be able to hurl rocks at snipers on a rooftop.