On Friday 6 September, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish-American activist was killed in cold blood by a sniper of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Eygi was sheltering from IDF provocations at a prayer session near the village of Beita in the West Bank, when she was shot in the head and killed.
Eygi joins the countless other victims of the Zionist regime, Palestinians and their international supporters, in a decades-long project of ethnic cleansing – backed to the hilt by western imperialism. The killing of Eygi, a US citizen, further exposes the complicity of Biden and Harris in the ongoing genocide.
In a familiar pattern, the IDF performed its own brief ‘investigation’ into the event, and released a statement declaring:
“The inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot. The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tyres and hurled rocks towards security forces at the Beita junction.”
It seems that Biden has taken this ‘explanation’ as good coin, calling the killing a “tragic error” and making no call for an independent investigation. However, as witnesses to the event confirm, the IDF’s account is a lie from start to finish.
Killed in cold blood
Every Friday, residents of Beita gather at a junction on top of a hill for their Friday prayers. They are often harassed by soldiers of the IDF, which is why a group of 10 foreign volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), including Eygi, were there to provide support.
On the fateful Friday 6 September, IDF forces began harassing and intimidating the villagers of Beita as usual. When the villagers pushed back by yelling at the soldiers, setting tires on fire, and throwing stones, the soldiers fired tear gas into the group.
According to those who were there, Eygi and the other volunteers had come down from the hill when the escalation started. As a witness reported in Zeteo:
“As Ayşenur went down the hill, she helped a 62-year-old volunteer who had difficulties walking. She was nervous for her. They hid behind an olive tree, believing they were in a secluded area. They believed they were safe.
“That's when the first live round was shot. Volunteers across the field heard the sound of the gun piercing the wind into something metal, making a ‘clunk’ noise. A Palestinian man was injured.
“Then, there was a second shot, and Ayşenur dropped.”
Eygi was hit directly by an IDF sniper, stationed on top of a nearby building. The idea that this was ‘unintentional’, as the IDF claims, makes a mockery of the facts. What the IDF’s statement does reveal, however, is that they feel justified in executing anyone who ‘burns tyres’ or ‘hurls rocks’.
Indeed, according to the ISM, 17 Palestinians have been killed by IDF forces at the same village of Beita since March 2020, and many others have been injured. Just one month ago, Amado Sison, an American, was shot in the leg by IDF forces in Beita, as he tried to flee tear gas and live fire.
It’s clear that Eygi was deliberately targeted for nothing other than the ‘crime’ of offering solidarity to Palestinians as they resist the brutal ethnic cleansing of their lands by Zionists.
Impunity
The harassment of the villagers of Beita was massively stepped up in early 2021, when far-right Zionist settlers of the Nachala movement forcefully occupied the hill opposite the village, known to locals as Jabal Sabih. Nachala’s leaders are on record stating that they aim for Israel to annex both the West Bank and Gaza.
Nachala settlers seized over a million square metres of land, built 50 permanent structures, and renamed the hill Evyatar (‘god is great’ in Hebrew). Since then they have terrorised the local Palestinian population, with the direct support of the IDF.
This practice is now routine across the West Bank. Especially since 7 October, fanatical settlers have stepped up their seizures of Palestinian lands, knowing they can act with impunity. It is to this regime of terror that US President Biden has pledged his ‘unwavering’ support.
Palestinian farmers are subject to intense harassment, with their livestock hassled by drones, their crops seized, and water supplies cut. Many have been ordered to leave their homes and flocks at gunpoint, and threatened with death if they return or resist. And Palestinian villages have increasingly been subjected to pogroms, with their homes burnt or bulldozed by fanatical mobs.
All of this is happening with the backing of the IDF. It has recently stepped up its raids into West Bank villages, killing dozens in the last weeks alone. With Gaza already blasted into rubble, and Israel’s stated war aim of ‘destroying Hamas’ no closer, these operations are clearly a provocation to ensure the continuation of the fighting, on which Netanyahu’s political survival depends.
In total, nearly 700 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF or settlers in the West Bank since October. All this is given the green light by the western imperialists, who simply look the other way.
Hypocrisy
Since Egyi was a US citizen, however, US President Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris felt obliged to shed a few crocodile tears in response to her murder:
“I am outraged and deeply saddened by the death of Ayşenur Eygi”, Biden said in a statement. Both Biden and Harris called her shooting “totally unacceptable”, and called for Israel to take “full accountability”.
This is nothing but the most sickening hypocrisy, from the team who have effectively given Netanyahu a blank cheque to carry out a genocide against the Palestinian people. Two million Palestinians in Gaza are being starved, 90 percent of their homes have been destroyed, and upwards of 186,000 have been killed according to the Lancet.
Eygi is in fact the third US citizen to be killed in the West Bank since 7 October / Image: X
Facing pressure at home, they of course go through the motions of imploring Netanyahu to ‘protect civilians’ in words. But the reality is that in deeds, they allow the regime to conduct itself with total impunity, since Israel remains a key strategic ally for US imperialism in the Middle East. If they really cared, they could bring the genocide to an end in a matter of days by stopping the flow of arms and money to the Israeli regime.
What Biden and Harris really find ‘unacceptable’ is that, by killing a US citizen, the Israelis have put them in an embarrassing position, especially with the election coming up in November. The murder of Eygi has drawn unwanted attention to the increasing violence in the West Bank, and the complicity of the US government in the wider genocide.
Consequences
Likewise feeling the pressure, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken feigned indignation over the killing of Eygi, which he called “unprovoked and unjustified”. He warned Israel that there will be “consequences” for its actions, without, of course, specifying what.
But if the ‘consequences’ are anything like those that followed the 10 other US citizens killed by Israel over the past 20 years, they will amount to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Eygi is in fact the third US citizen to be killed in the West Bank since 7 October. In 2022, Shireen Abu Akleh (a prominent Palestinian-American journalist) was killed in very similar circumstances, shot in the head by an IDF sniper. The IDF initially blamed ‘Palestinian militants’ before an internal ‘investigation’ concluded her death was an ‘accident’.
Prior to that, there was the killing of Rachel Corrie in 2003. Corrie, like Eygi, was a member of the ISM. She was crushed to death by the IDF with an armoured bulldozer, manufactured in the US and leased through a Defense Department programme. And as with the killing of Eygi and Abu Akleh, the IDF ‘investigated’ itself, and found ‘no case to answer’. Then, as now, the US government made some mild criticisms of the Israeli regime, which were duly ignored.
There is only one way for the Israeli state and its imperialist backers to face the full consequences of all the crimes they have committed throughout history. This will not come from toothless ‘investigations’, carried out by the very criminals responsible.
Only the working class and poor, by taking power into their own hands, can sweep away all the rotten regimes, from Washington to London, and across the entire Middle East, and bring real justice for those martyred in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
- Justice for Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and all other victims of Israeli violence!
- For a revolutionary struggle against the Zionist regime and its imperialist allies!
- Down with the warmongers!
- For a Socialist Federation of the Middle East!