Illustration
IllustrationJamal Awad/Flash 90

Palestinian Arabs claimed on Friday that Israeli soldiers shot and killed an American woman who was participating in a protest near Shechem (Nablus), The Associated Press reported, citing Palestinian Arab doctors who claimed she had been shot in the head, and another protester who said he had witnessed the shooting.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller later confirmed the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old woman born in Turkey, but did not say whether she had been indeed shot by Israeli troops.

The White House said in a statement it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing of a US citizen, and it called on Israel to investigate what happened.

Eygi was also a Turkish citizen, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli said, adding that the country would exert “all effort to ensure that those who killed our citizens are brought to justice.”

The woman was attending a weekly demonstration against Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

The IDF said it was looking into the reports. A statement from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said, “Today (Friday), during Israeli security forces activity adjacent to the area of Beita, the forces responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them.”

“The IDF is looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area. The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review,” it added.

(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)