Calls grow for US investigation into Israeli killing of Turkish American activist
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- Written by Ruth Michaelson | The Guardian Ruth Michaelson | The Guardian
- Published: 26 September 2024 26 September 2024
[As we know from Israel's killing of Rachel Corrie, Israel does not do investigations, they only do coverups]
Family joins US lawmakers in demanding that government look into death of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in West Bank
The family of a Turkish American woman shot by the Israeli military while attending a protest in the West Bank have been joined by a growing chorus of US lawmakers demanding that their government launch its own investigation into the killing.
Autopsies conducted in the West Bank town of Nablus and Turkey found that Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head. Shortly after the incident, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it was “highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her”.
The White House has called for Israel to investigate Eygi’s death but friends and family has expressed skepticism that such an inquiry will lead to any accountability.
“We are not putting our faith or trust in a military that deliberately shot and killed an individual to investigate themselves of their own crime,” said Juliette Majid, who graduated alongside Eygi from the university of Washington in Seattle.
“What I want is justice and accountability, which to me looks like a US-led criminal investigation … I want the US to hold [the Israeli military] accountable. At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be in this situation, Ayşenur should be coming home alive,” she said.
Eygi’s family’s call for a US-led inquiry has been echoed by senator Patty Murray and congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state who wrote to Joe Biden and the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, demanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launch an investigation.
“We fear that if this pattern of impunity does not end with Ms Eygi, it will only continue to escalate,” they said, pointing to the killing of activist Rachel Corrie – also from Washington state – in 2003 at a protest in Gaza, and calling on the US government to better protect American citizens overseas
Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/26/aysenur-ezgi-eygi-investigation-israel