ISM rejects Israeli claim that killing of human rights activist was ‘unintentional’

A Turkish-American human rights activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Aysenur Eygi, was killed last Friday, 6 September, by a single shot to the head from an Israeli sniper while witnessing a demonstration against the illegal Israeli settlement of Evyatar on land belonging to the Palestinians living in Beita, in the occupied West Bank. After a brief internal investigation conducted by the Israeli army, a statement asserted that, “The inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her.”

The ISM has said that it rejects this “specious” claim and continues to demand an independent investigation of the Israeli army’s killing of Aysenur Eygi.

“We are joined in this demand by people worldwide who have watched Israel operate with impunity for decades,” said the ISM. “The world sees through this transparent attempt to conceal the Israeli army’s responsibility for Aysenur’s killing. She is just one of the tens of thousands killed by Israel over decades of ethnic cleansing, displacement and genocide.”

The Zionist regime’s account of the events is based blindly on the narrative of those responsible and their accomplices, insisted the ISM.

“This completely contradicts the testimonies of multiple eyewitnesses, who the military did not even contact. All eyewitnesses said immediately following the killing that the scene where Aysenur was killed was completely quiet, and that there could have been no excuse to open fire, let alone directly hitting a woman standing peacefully in an olive grove.”

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According to activists who were present when Aysenur was killed, explained the movement, the Israeli army’s brief statement includes an “array of evident falsehoods”. For example, the army claims that she was not the target of the kill-shot, but rather that she was hit “indirectly and unintentionally” when a soldier targeted a key instigator of the protest. “This claim,” said the ISM, “does not align with the physical reality on the ground.”

The movement pointed out that the nearest Israeli forces to where Aysenur was when she was shot were those positioned on a rooftop some 220 metres away from her, in an elevated position. “Considering the distance and the soldiers’ elevation, stones could not have physically been thrown towards the soldiers from the location where she was shot.” Moreover, there were two separate shots fired, with a few seconds in between them. The first shot hit a metal object and shrapnel hit a Palestinian teenager in the pelvis. “Had there been any truth to the military’s false narrative of confrontations taking place where and when Aysenur was shot, reason would have it that he was the main instigator that the army’s statement is referring to.”

However, the ISM noted, Aysenur was hit by a second shot, several seconds after the teenager was already down. “It was aimed directly at her, as there was no one else around (apart from another activist standing nearby) who could have been the target of the shot. The teenager was located further away to the side from the soldiers than Aysenur, so a shot aimed at him by a trained sniper could not have possibly hit her, directly or indirectly.”

The movement said that the army statement “very manipulatively” conflates two events that are separate in time and place.

“The first event is the one during which short confrontations took place soon after the midday prayer at the top of the hill. It was then and there that a few burning tyres were placed on the road. The second event is the shooting of Aysenur, which took place more than half an hour later – when there were no confrontations at all – more than 274m from where the burning tyres were, and about 220m from the rooftop where the soldier who shot her was positioned in an elevated, tactically controlling position.”

Furthermore, said the ISM, Aysenur was not shot at the Beita Junction. “The Beita Junction is here, while she was shot here.” The two locations are almost two kilometres from each other.

“The Israeli army has a long history of using sham investigations as a method of covering up human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in Palestine. According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, from a report published jointly with the Palestine Centre for Human Rights, Israel has long been ‘unwilling and unable’ to investigate its soldiers for attacking peaceful protesters. This history of fake investigations as cover-ups goes back decades, and has been documented by B’Tselem and other human rights groups.”

When ISM activist Rachel Corrie was killed by the Israeli army in Gaza in 2003, a similar sham investigation swiftly cleared the Israeli forces of all responsibility. Rachel Corrie’s parents have spoken out demanding a thorough investigation in this latest case. They warn about another cover-up, and have said clearly that if an independent, truthful investigation had been conducted 21 years ago, many lives that have been taken by Israel in the ensuing decades could have been saved.

Even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that, “The killing of the American activist in the West Bank was unjustified and without provocation on her part, and it is not permissible to shoot someone because he participated in a demonstration.”

The ISM insists that an independent investigation of the Israeli army’s killing of Aysenur Eygi is essential if justice is to be done.

The International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the long-entrenched and systematic oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian population, using non-violent, direct-action methods and principles. Founded in August 2001, ISM aims to support and strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance by being immediately alongside Palestinians in olive groves, on school runs, at demonstrations, within villages being attacked, by houses being demolished or where Palestinians are subject to consistent harassment or attacks from soldiers and settlers as well as numerous other situations.

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