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<div class="gmail-inner-article-top"><h1 class="gmail-">US citizen shot dead by Israeli troops during West Bank protest</h1><p class="gmail-">Aysenur
Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head while protesting alongside Palestinians
against Jewish settlement expansion and settler violence near Nablus </p><div class="gmail-another-name"><p><a href="https://thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9" style="color:rgb(164,4,4)">News Desk</a></p></div><div class="gmail-another-name" style="margin-top:16px"><p><span>SEP 6, 2024 -<font size="1"> </font></span><font size="1"><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/us-citizen-shot-dead-by-israeli-troops-during-west-bank-protest">https://thecradle.co/articles/us-citizen-shot-dead-by-israeli-troops-during-west-bank-protest</a></font></p></div></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-img"><img src="http://thecradle-main.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/public/articles/710bc6f2-6c58-11ef-bff9-00163e02c055.jpeg" alt="" width="440" height="248" style="margin-right: 0px;"><span>A
<font size="1">Palestinian reacts during a protest against Israeli settlements near
Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank September 15, 2023. (Photo
credit: Raneen Sawafta/REUTERS)</font></span></div><div class="gmail-inner-article-content"><div class="gmail-row"><div class="gmail-col-md-8 gmail-col-sm-7"><div class="gmail-article-content"><span><p>Israeli
forces shot and killed a female international activist during an
anti-occupation protest in the town of Beita near Nablus in the West
Bank, WAFA news agency <a href="https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/148963">reported</a> on 6 August.</p><p>Twenty-six-year-old
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a US citizen of Turkish descent, died on Friday
after being shot in the head with live ammunition by Israeli forces in
Beita, a town located south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.</p><p>Eygi was participating alongside local Palestinians in the weekly protest against settlement expansion.</p><p>WAFA
added that the activist was rushed to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus and
placed in the intensive care unit in an effort to save her life.</p><p>“We tried to perform a resuscitation operation on her, but unfortunately she died,” Rafidia Hospital Director Fouad Nafaa <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-citizen-killed-anti-settler-protest-west-bank-palestinian-news-agency-reports-2024-09-06/">told</a> <i>Reuters</i>.</p><p>There was no immediate comment from the US embassy.</p><p>Local
sources told WAFA that the confrontation erupted when Israeli forces
violently suppressed the Friday protest, firing live ammunition, stun
grenades, and tear gas at demonstrators. An 18-year-old Palestinian was
also injured by Israeli forces when shrapnel struck her in the thigh.</p><p>Eygi
was a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and was
involved with the Faz’a campaign, which works to support and protect
Palestinian farmers from Israeli military and settler violence.</p><p>Ezgi
is the third ISM volunteer to be killed by the Israeli forces in
occupied Palestine. Rachel Corrie was killed in Gaza’s Rafah in 2003
after an Israeli soldier crushed her with a bulldozer. Tom Hurndall was
killed in Gaza in 2004 by an Israeli sniper. An Israeli soldier shot
Brian Avery in the face in Jenin in 2003. He survived the attack but was
permanently maimed. The bullet ripped through his cheek and smashed his
eye socket and jaw bones.</p><span></span><p>The
Israeli army’s killing of Eygi comes amid a broader increase in settler
attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. The settler movement
seeks to expel Palestinians from their land to pave the way for Jewish
settlement.</p><p>Earlier this month, more than 70 armed Jewish settlers <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/15/middleeast/israeli-settlers-set-west-bank-village-ablaze-intl/index.html">invaded</a>
the Palestinian town of Jit in the occupied West Bank, firing bullets
and tear gas at residents and setting several homes and cars and other
property on fire.</p><p>Settlers killed 23-year-old Rashid Sedda during the pogrom. The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pa-calls-settler-violence-in-jit-organized-state-terrorism/">confirmed</a> the young Palestinian died due to a gunshot wound to the chest.</p><p>“We
have attacks but nothing to this level,” the head of Jit’s village
council, Nasser Sedda, told CNN. “We haven’t seen anything like this
before, and without a prior warning. They caught the people off guard –
women, children, and elders were there.”</p><p>“Dozens of Israeli
civilians, some of them masked, entered the town of Jit and set fire to
vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov
cocktails,” the Israeli military said in a statement</p></span></div></div></div></div>
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