U.N. calls for full investigation into death of U.S. citizen in West Bank

The United Nations on Friday called for a “full investigation” into the circumstances leading to the death of an American woman in the occupied West Bank, saying civilians should be protected at all times.

“People should be held accountable,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, said when he was alerted to the case by a reporter at a daily news briefing.

Two witnesses said Aysenur Eygi, 26, was shot in the head Friday by Israeli forces who had opened fire. She was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group, and was attending a protest at Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita, her colleagues said.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that she was a citizen.

In a statement, Eygi’s family said they were in “shock and grief” following news of her death.

“Like the olive tree she lay beneath where she took her last breaths, Aysenur was strong, beautiful, and nourishing. Her presence in our lives was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military,” the family said.

Eygi had recently graduated from the University of Washington, where she was an active campus member who “felt compelled to travel to the West Bank to stand in solidarity with Palestinian civilians,” her family said. “She felt a deep responsibility to serve others and lived a life of caring for those in need with action. She was a fiercely passionate human rights activist her whole life – a steadfast and staunch advocate of justice.”

The White House said Friday that U.S. officials were “deeply disturbed” by Eygi’s death and had contacted Tel Aviv “to ask for more information and request an investigation into the incident.”

Eygi’s family said that they appreciated U.S. officials’ condolences but called on them to order an independent investigation, stating that an “Israeli investigation is not adequate.”

Hisham Dweikat, a Beita resident and member of the Palestinian National Council legislative body who was at the protest when Eygi was shot, said a representative of the Palestinian attorney general took affidavits from Beita residents and international activists who were present Friday. He added that five Israeli military vehicles had also arrived at the site of the shooting and took photos and measurements.

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” and that the “details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review.” The statement said that Israeli forces in the area of Beita had “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.”

Eyewitnesses told The Post that they saw the Israeli military in two Jeeps and a white van Saturday collecting stones close to where Eygi died. Mahmoud Abdullah, 43, a local resident who was in the area at the time of her death, said soldiers came to his house and asked for any video footage and cameras.

Another resident, Ali Mohali, said Israel’s army often takes over his rooftop during demonstrations and was at his house Friday. He said he heard a gunshot that shook his home – one that he believes may have killed Eygi. The Post could not independently verify his claims.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday during a trip to the Caribbean that the U.S. government was “intensely focused on getting those facts” about Eygi’s death.

“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,” Blinken told reporters.

On Saturday, mourners gathered in the West Bank town of Qaryut, near Nablus, for the funeral of 13-year-old Bana Laboum, who was also shot and killed the day before after Israeli forces arrived in her village. Her father, 47-year-old Amjad Bakar, knelt beside his daughter’s freshly filled grave.

Bakar and the Palestinian Health Ministry said the Israeli military shot Laboum on Friday through the window of her home, after showing up amid a confrontation between Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers.

In a statement Friday, the IDF acknowledged opening fire and said it received a report “regarding a Palestinian girl who was killed by shots in the area.”

“An initial inquiry indicates that the Israeli security forces that were dispatched to the scene operated to disperse the riot in the area, including firing shots into the air,” the statement said, adding that “the incident is under review.”

What else to know

• At least eight people were killed and 15 injured after Israeli warplanes struck a school in northern Gaza early Saturday, according to the state-run Palestinian news agency Wafa. The Halima al-Sadia School had been sheltering displaced people, Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense force, told The Post. The IDF acknowledged the attack and said on social media that it had targeted a Hamas command and control center inside the school compound.

• The Israeli military withdrew from the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, leaving a trail of destruction while ending one of the longest and deadliest incursions into the territory in years. The United Nations said that there was “significant damage to civilian infrastructure” and that over 1,000 families in Jenin were displaced. The IDF said 14 militants and one Israeli soldier were killed. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah said 21 people were killed, including children and elderly people. It did not say how many were militants.

• U.S. officials have accused a Pakistani citizen living in Canada of planning a mass shooting against Jewish people in New York on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Muhammad Shahzeb Khan was arrested on charges that he had attempted to provide material support to the Islamic State. He had “the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS (Islamic State), as many Jewish people as possible,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

• Roughly 355,000 children in Gaza have been vaccinated against polio since Sept. 1, according to the World Health Organization. The agency and its partners launched a vaccination campaign this month after Israel and Hamas agreed to brief “humanitarian pauses” to allow the vaccinations to take place in designated areas of Gaza amid fears of a wider outbreak.

• At least 40,939 people have been killed and 94,616 injured in Gaza since the war started, the Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday. The agency does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 340 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.

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Kareem Fahim, Hajar Harb, Mohamad El Chamaa, Alon Rom and Lior Soroka contributed to this report.