Israel’s military has said it was “highly likely” its forces shot dead a 26-year-old US-Turkish woman at a protest in the occupied West Bank last week, though unintentionally.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was demonstrating in the town of Beita, near Nablus, against Jewish settlement expansion on 6 September.
Local media reports said she had been shot by Israeli troops, prompting an investigation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Tuesday’s release of findings concluded it was “highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.”
The statement added: “The IDF expresses its deepest regret over the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.”
However, the US – Israel’s key ally – reacted angrily. Its Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said the IDF’s investigation appeared to show Ms Eygi’s death was “unprovoked and unjustified”.
“No-one should be shot and killed for attending a protest,” Mr Blinken told reporters shortly after the findings were released.
The White House had previously deplored Ms Eygi’s killing as a “tragic loss”, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had branded the Israeli action as “barbaric”.
In its statement, the IDF said the “incident” had taken place during “a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks toward security forces at the Beita Junction.”
But the protest group which Ms Eygi had been with at the time of the demonstration dismissed claims it threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, saying such assertions were “false”. They said their protest had been peaceful.
Ms Eygi had been a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation which takes part in weekly demonstrations at Beita against Israeli settlements.
A fellow protester had previously told the BBC that last Friday’s demonstration had been Ms Eygi’s first time attending a protest with the ISM.
