ISRAEL’s military says it is very likely its soldiers fired the shot that killed an American-Turkish woman at a protest in the occupied West Bank last week but says her death was unintentional and expresses deep regret.
Turkish and Palestinian officials said on Friday that Israeli soldiers shot 26-year-old Ezgi Yegi, who had been taking part in a demonstration against settlement expansion during a regular protest march by activists in Beita, a village near Nablus.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had conducted an inquiry into the incident.
“The inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by [Israeli military] fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot,” the military said.
“The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tyres and hurled rocks towards security forces at the Beita Junction.”
The Israeli military “expresses its deepest regret over the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi”, it added and said the military had also “sent a request to carry out an autopsy”.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had earlier said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a “shot in the head”.
Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation that on Saturday dismissed claims that ISM activists threw rocks at Israeli forces as “false” and said the demonstration was peaceful.
Eygi’s killing came amid a surge of violence in the West Bank since Israel launched its war on Gaza October with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian fighters on Israelis, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and heavier military crackdowns on Palestinian protests.
More than 690 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.
The Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession for Eygi in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Turkish authorities also said they are working on repatriating her body to Turkey for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim per her family’s wishes.
