American woman killed at West Bank protest was a UW grad from Seattle
Washington Post and Seattle Times
An American woman was killed Friday in the occupied West Bank, the State Department said. Two witnesses said the woman was shot in the head by Israeli forces who had opened fire.
The woman, Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group, had been attending a protest of Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita when she was shot, her colleagues said. Copies of her passport that circulated online said she was born in Turkey, and the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that she was a citizen.
Teachers and peers at UW reeled from the news Friday and remembered Eygi, who was a Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Central College student before attending UW, while local leaders issued anguished statements about her death.
“I’m absolutely devastated. The whole community is,” said Aria Fani, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures who taught Eygi in a translation studies class at UW and got to know her well. “It’s a huge tragedy.”
Fani described Eygi as an exceptional person, calling her “one of the most brilliant students” he’s worked with. She also held Turkish citizenship, and her final project for his class was translating Turkish poetry into English, Fani said. She was interested in pursuing a doctorate in Near East archaeology after graduating this spring with a UW degree in psychology, he added.
Egyi was born in Turkey, but her family moved to the U.S. when she was less than 1 year old and settled in Seattle, an uncle told the New York Times, calling his niece “such a pure, such a good kid.”
She was politically active, demonstrating against the Dakota Access Pipeline years ago and speaking up on multiple issues, Fani said. She took part in pro-Palestinian organizing at UW last spring related to the war in Gaza and engaged in negotiations with administrators over a protest encampment, he said.
“She would come to my office having barely slept a couple hours the night before, staying up educating herself by listening to Palestinians and their families about their historical trauma, doing research,” the professor said.
Eygi coordinated programming at the encampment and organized teach-ins, Seattle friends told the New York Times. Protesters and administrators eventually struck a deal that included scholarships for students displaced from Gaza in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“Her name (Aysenur) means life and light,” Fani said. “I may have been her teacher once, but she will be my teacher for life. Her courage was exemplary.”
Kyle Haddad-Fonda, a UW history lecturer, also remembered Eygi as perpetually exhausted in the spring as she balanced her studies with protest negotiations, working for a meaningful resolution and to prevent violence on campus. She “abhorred suffering and believed in justice,” he said.
“She combined thoughtfulness with moral clarity in a way that deeply impressed those of us who had the privilege to teach her,” he wrote in an email.
Carrie Perrin, academic services director of UW’s psychology department, met Eygi as her academic adviser and said she came to know her as a friend.
“Her communities were made better by her life and her death leaves hearts breaking around the world today,” Perrin wrote in an email.
In a statement Friday about the “awful news,” UW President Ana Mari Cauce said that Eygi helped welcome new students to the psychology department and provided a positive influence as a peer mentor.
“My heart goes out to Aysenur’s family, friends and loved ones,” Cause said.
Cauce noted that Eygi’s death marks the second time over the past year that a UW community member was killed in the region. Hayim Katsman, 32, was killed by Hamas militants in the Oct. 7 attacks in his home in Israel. Katsman had received his doctorate from UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies in 2021.
“I again join with our government and so many who are working and calling for a cease-fire and resolution to the crisis,” Cauce said, referring to her support for a cease-fire in the war in Gaza, which she first publicly called for in May.
Eygi traveled to the West Bank recently to show solidarity with Palestinians there, said Fani, who met her in a Lake Forest Park bakery about two months ago and urged her not to go because he was worried for her safety.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area.” The statement said that Israeli forces in the area of Beita, in the northern West Bank, “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.”
“The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review,” it said.
Jonathan Pollak, a volunteer with the ISM, said the shooting took place about 30 minutes after protesters had dispersed, when there were no active clashes, and as foreign volunteers, including Eygi, stood observing about 200 yards from the Israeli military.
“There was no justification for taking that shot,” he said.
National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement that the United States was “deeply disturbed by the tragic death” of Eygi and had contacted Israel “to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a trip to the Caribbean, said Friday that the U.S. government is “intensely focused on getting those facts,” but he held back from detailing whether there would be consequences for the Israeli government ahead of understanding exactly what happened.
“I just want to extend my deepest condolences, the condolences of the United States government, to the family of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi. We deplore this tragic loss,” he told reporters when asked what message he had for Americans who were concerned that the U.S. government was sending military aid to the Israeli government.
“When we have more info, we’ll share it. We’ll make it available. And, as necessary, we’ll act on it,” Blinken said.
When Pollak and his colleagues arrived in Beita on Friday, soldiers were deployed around a site where people were set to perform Friday prayers, he said. As soon as the prayers were over, “clashes began,” he said. The soldiers used tear gas and live ammunition “almost immediately.” There was also “stone throwing” at the soldiers, he said.
The ISM activists retreated down a hill, about 200 yards from the town where the soldiers were stationed. “We stood there for about half an hour,” he said. The soldiers took over a rooftop in the town, he said, calling it “a controlling rooftop.” Eygi was in an olive grove, according to Pollak and another ISM volunteer who spoke on the condition she be identified only by her first name, Mariam, for fear of retribution.
“I didn’t see her at the moment of the shooting because I was looking at the soldiers,” said Pollak, referring to Eygi. “I saw the soldiers shooting. I saw the flare. I saw them aiming,” he said. He and Mariam said there were two shots – one that struck a metal object and another that hit Eygi in the head.
“We were clearly visible to the army; there was nothing happening where we were standing,” Mariam said. “We were internationals,” she said, adding that Palestinian youths who had clashed with the soldiers were much farther away, up the hill. “We were just standing there,” she said.
A video of the aftermath of the shooting showed what appears to be military vehicles on a hill as an ambulance speeds away below them.
Pollak said Eygi’s killing was not “an isolated incident. Seventeen people have been killed at demonstrations in Beita since 2021.”
“The only reason we are hearing about it now is because it’s happening to an American,” he said. “It’s devastating.”
In the background of Friday’s protest is a sustained effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to expand Israel’s control over the West Bank, by approving land seizures and major settlement construction while escalating demolitions of Palestinian property and increasing state support for illegally built settler outposts.
The campaign has resulted in the most significant territorial changes in the West Bank in decades and buoyed a radical Jewish settler movement, backed by right-wing cabinet members trying to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state. The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on illegal settler outposts and on Israeli settlers accused of attacking Palestinians – measures that have had little effect on the expansion of settlements or the sharp escalation of settler violence.
The ISM, in a statement, said Beita had seen ongoing demonstrations against the construction of illegal Israeli outposts on the village’s land. Eygi was in Beita to attend one of the weekly Friday demonstrations, the statement said. She was the third ISM volunteer killed since 2003.
Rachel Corrie, a 23-year old ISM activist from Olympia, was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in March 2003, as she and others tried to prevent the razing of Palestinian homes by Israeli forces along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Her family argued in court that her killing had been intentional. Israeli military investigations found no wrongdoing.
Less than a month later, Tom Hurndall, a British ISM volunteer, was shot in the head by an IDF sniper in Gaza as Hurndall was trying to rescue children who had come under fire.
The sniper, Taysir al-Heib, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison but released early. Hurndall, who fell into a coma, died nine months later.
Turkey’s government, which has been sharply critical of Israel since the beginning of the Gaza war, on Friday condemned what it said was the “murder” of Eygi “committed by the Netanyahu government” and said Israel was trying to “intimidate” people who came to help Palestinians, according to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who represents most of Seattle, said her office was working to gather more information on the events that led to Eygi’s death. She said she was troubled by reports that Eygi was killed by Israeli soldiers and criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“The killing of an American citizen is a terrible proof point in this senseless war of rising tensions in the region,” Jayapal said in a statement.
Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement: “I am heartbroken and angry about the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, an American citizen, in the West Bank today, who was reportedly peacefully protesting against illegal settlement activity. The government of Israel must deliver answers immediately and hold the perpetrators of this killing accountable.”
Eygi’s profile on LinkedIn said she was a recent psychology graduate “with a minor in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of Washington.” Her volunteer work, it said, “has allowed me to make an impact both locally and internationally.” Her résumé said she had worked with students, children with autism and as a legal assistant.
“I’m driven by a passion for making a positive impact and continuously seek opportunities to learn, grow, and contribute to meaningful projects,” her profile said. She graduated college, it said, in June.