By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The family of a Turkish-American woman killed by Israel in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will meet U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday and call for an independent U.S.-led probe into her killing, the woman’s sister told Reuters on Tuesday.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was killed on Sept. 6 as she took part in a protest against settlement expansion in the West Bank amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
KEY QUOTES
“For the last three months, Blinken and State Department officials have repeatedly told us to wait for Israel, the government whose army perpetrated the crime against Aysenur, to investigate itself. This cannot stand,” Ozden Bennett, Eygi’s sister, said in a statement.
Bennett and Eygi’s widower Hamid Ali will be among the family members meeting Blinken and State Department officials.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Eygi’s killing and the surge of assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank have been criticized by Washington but the U.S. has announced no major policy change toward Israel, which the Turkish-American’s family has condemned. Blinken called Eygi’s killing “unprovoked.”
CONTEXT
Israel has acknowledged its troops shot the activist, but says it was an unintentional act during a demonstration that turned violent.
Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, an area Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state. Israel has built a thickening array of settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel cites historical and biblical ties to the area.
The International Court of Justice says Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there are illegal.
Israel is waging a war in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza where tens of thousands have been killed in the last 14 months and over which Israel has faced genocide allegations that it denies. That Israeli assault followed an Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian Hamas militants that killed about 1,200 and in which dozens were taken hostage.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Don Durfee and Michael Perry)
