Israel has claimed responsibility for the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, an American activist who was shot dead at a West Bank protest march. (Eygi family/AP pic)
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Wednesday called the Israeli military’s killing of an American activist in the West Bank “totally unacceptable” and said Israel must do more to make sure it never happens again.
Israel has taken responsibility for the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, and 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.
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.
Eygi had been taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the West Bank, which most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes that, citing historical ties to the land.
Eygi’s relatives called on Biden and Vice President Kamala 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.
Biden also decried the ongoing violence in the West Bank by “extremist Israeli settlers” and “Palestinian terrorists,” one day after top US officials demanded an overhaul of Israeli military conduct in the occupied West Bank.
“I will continue to support policies that hold all extremists – Israelis and Palestinians alike – accountable for stoking violence and serving as obstacles to peace,” Biden said.
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