Family of US protester killed by Israeli forces presses Blinken for investigation

Person holds poster featuring Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi

The family of a US-Turkish woman killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank met Secretary of State Antony Blinken to call for a US investigation.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was shot in the head as she took part in a demonstration in the Palestinian village of Beita in September.

Israel has said it is investigating her death, describing it as "unintentional" from a ricocheted bullet, but the family says this claim is contradicted by the available evidence and eyewitness accounts.

After meeting Mr Blinken in Washington on Monday, Ms Eygi's widower Hamid Ali said the family was "not optimistic" that justice would be served.

"He was very deferential to the Israelis," Mr Ali told the BBC. "It felt like he was saying his hands were tied and they weren't able to really do much."

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Mr Blinken offered the family his "deepest condolences" during the meeting.

"It was a death that never should have happened," Mr Miller said. "He told them that Israel has told us in recent days that they are finalising their investigation."

Pressed by the BBC over the family's dissatisfaction with the US response, Mr Miller said: "We will demand answers from the government of Israel."

He added that any decision on opening a criminal investigation would fall to the Department of Justice.

Both Mr Blinken and the justice department's head, Attorney General Merick Garland, will step down when Donald Trump is inaugurated as the next US president in roughly a month.

The area in which Ms Eygi was killed has long been the site of weekly protests against expansion into village lands of an Israeli settlement outpost.

Ms Eygi, who grew up in Seattle, had travelled to support Palestinian villagers and help document Israeli military responses to their protests, according to her family. She was demonstrating with the International Solidarity Movement, a group which advocates for Palestinian rights. The group says Ms Eygi was the 18th protester killed by Israeli forces in the village of Beita since 2020.

The family is calling for a US criminal investigation and for the Department of State to acquire basic details from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) such as the unit involved and the identity of the commander, lawyer Brad Parker told the BBC.

"The fact that they use live ammunition at protests at all has become normalised because there's been so many deaths and so much killing, and Aysenur was a victim of that impunity," said Mr Parker.

The IDF said after Ms Eygi's death that its forces had fired at an "instigator" of "violent activity" and were defending themselves from stone throwing.

It later said it was "highly likely" Ms Eygi was hit "indirectly and unintentionally" by the IDF fire, which was not "aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot."

An Israeli activist who was present told the BBC at the time there was "no stone throwing" where she had been.

The International Court of Justice this year judged Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal and said it was under an obligation to end it as rapidly as possible. Israel has rejected the finding.