Israel says 'highly likely' army fire killed Turkish-American activist

JERUSALEM

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it was highly likely its forces accidentally shot dead a US-Turkish activist during a protest in the occupied West Bank last week.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was killed on Friday in the West Bank town of Beita, the site of weekly demonstrations against Israeli settlements.

In a statement on Eygi's death, the Israeli military said an inquiry had "found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF (Israeli army) fire".

It added that the fire "was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot".

The United Nations rights office had earlier said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a "shot in the head".

The mayor of Beita, the Palestinian official news agency Wafa and her family also reported that Israeli soldiers killed her.

Palestinian eyewitness Mounir Khdair said that the Israeli sniper who killed Eygi cried out for joy after shooting her.

"After shooting her, he was happy, he shouted for joy," Khdair told Anadolu Agency.

Türkiye has condemned her killing, while the United States has called it "tragic" and said it was pressing for "a swift, thorough and transparent investigation".

Prior to Tuesday's statement the Israeli army acknowledged it had opened fire in the Beita area and said it was "looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired".

It had also said its forces "responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them" during the protest.

Tuesday's army statement said Eygi was killed during the protest.

Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organisation, which on Saturday dismissed claims that ISM activists threw rocks at Israeli forces as "false" and said the demonstration was peaceful.

Israel's army said Tuesday it had "sent a request to carry out an autopsy".