Biden, Harris seek 'full accountability' after Israel kills US citizen in West Bank

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday called the Israeli occupation army’s killing of an American activist in the Israeli-occupied West Bank “unacceptable” and said Israel must do more to make sure it never happens again, Reuters reports.

Israel has taken responsibility for the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who was killed while taking part in a peaceful protest against illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. Biden said the US government expects continued access to the criminal investigation into the shooting.

“There must be full accountability. And Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again,” Biden said in a statement.

Harris said in a separate statement that no one should be killed for participating in a peaceful protest.

“The shooting that led to her death is unacceptable and raises legitimate questions about the conduct of IDF [Israel Defence Forces] personnel in the West Bank,” she said.

Eygi, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead on Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers. Israel has said her death was accidental.

Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, an area Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state. Israel has built a thickening array of settlements there that are illegal under international law.

The International Court of Justice said in July that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there were illegal and should be ended as soon as possible

Eygi’s relatives called on Biden and Harris to speak to the family directly and order an independent investigation into her shooting.

To call her death an accident “is complicity in the Israeli military’s agenda to take Palestinian land and whitewash the killing of an American. … Let us be clear, an American citizen was killed by a foreign military in a targeted attack,” the family said in a statement.

Democratic US Senator Patty Murray and Representative Pramila Jayapal wrote a letter to Biden yesterday and requested “an immediate, transparent, credible and thorough” independent US investigation.

The family & loved ones of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi—the WA state resident killed in the West Bank—deserve to know their government has done everything it can to fully understand what led to her killing & pursue accountability.
@RepJayapal & I are calling on @POTUS for a full, US-led… pic.twitter.com/kxtS9thuej

— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) September 11, 2024

READ: Turkiye seeks int’l arrest warrants over US-Turkish citizen killed in West Bank