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aysenur ezgi eygi
Sanders Urges DOJ Probe Into Israeli Killing of American Activist Ayşenur Eygi
"The U.S. cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the illegal actions of the extremist Israeli government," the senator said.
Sep 13, 2024
Days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled that there would be no U.S. inquiry into Israel's killing of Turkish American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in the occupied West Bank last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday called on the Department of Justice to open an investigation of the young campaigner's death.
Eygi, a 26-year-old activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and recent graduate from the University of Washington, was shot in the head, allegedly by an IDF sniper, during a September 6 demonstration in Beita against Israel's illegal apartheid settlements. Eyewitnesses said Israeli forces killed Eygi with "a deliberate shot to the head."
"There will be no accountability if the United States defers to the extremist Israeli government to investigate its own actions."
Sanders noted that both U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, both called for "full accountability" for Eygi's killers.
"Let's be clear: There will be no accountability if the United States defers to the extremist Israeli government to investigate its own actions," he said in a statement.
Sanders continued:
There was no accountability when 17-year-old Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, an American citizen from Louisiana, was shot and killed in January. He was a senior in high school.
There was no accountability when another 17-year-old American, Mohammad Khdour from Florida, was shot and killed in February.
There was no accountability when Dylan Collins, an American journalist for Agence France-Presse, was targeted by Israeli tank fire in October. Six journalists were wounded in the attack, which killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah. The group was clearly marked as press.
There was no accountability when American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head by the Israeli military in May 2022. She was also clearly marked as press.
And there was no accountability when another American, 78-year-old Omar Assad, died after being bound and gagged by Israeli security forces.
"None of these Americans were armed," Sanders stressed. "None of them posed a threat."
Sanders also mentioned the hundreds of Palestinians—including more than 140 children—who have been killed by Israeli occupation forces and settler colonists in the West Bank since October.
"There has been no accountability for repeated Israeli settler attacks, enabled by security forces, on Palestinian towns and villages," he said. "No meaningful response to the burning of Palestinian homes and businesses."
"This is a clear pattern," Sanders contended. "These are not mistakes. This is policy: Shoot first, ask no questions later."
"These are not mistakes. This is policy: Shoot first, ask no questions later."
"By continuing to credulously accept the explanations of an extremist Israeli government whose stated goal is to annex the West Bank and push Palestinians off their land, the United States makes a mockery of its values and abdicates its responsibility to investigate and respond to attacks on its citizens," the senator said.
"The U.S. Justice Department must open its own, independent investigations into these attacks on American citizens by the Israeli security forces," he asserted. "The FBI should immediately collect testimony and forensic evidence. And President Biden must act to bring real pressure to bear to change Israeli policy."
"The United States cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the illegal actions of the extremist Israeli government," Sanders added. "We cannot allow American citizens and innocent Palestinians to be killed with impunity. We must act."
Sanders' admonition came a day after a trio of Democratic U.S. lawmakers from Washington state—Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal—demanded the Biden administration investigate Eygi's death.
The parents of Rachel Corrie—a 23-year-old American ISM activist who was crushed to death by a U.S.-supplied bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes in 2003—this week also called for an independent investigation into Eygi's killing.
While admitting that it is "highly likely" that Israeli troops killed Eygi, IDF officials called the killing "unintentional," claiming the fatal shot "was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of... a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks" at occupation forces.
Biden came under fire for repeating Israel's claim, with observers noting that time and again, journalistic and other investigations have concluded that Israeli forces deliberately targeted their victims.
In stark contrast to the U.S. response to Eygi's killing, Turkey—of which she was also a citizen—said it would seek international arrest warrants for whoever shot her.
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is trying to obtain arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a trio of Hamas leaders—at least one of whom has been assassinated.
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Rachel Corrie's Parents Urge Probe Into Israel's Killing of American Activist Ayşenur Eygi
"There needs to be consequences," said Craig Corrie. "These are American weapons that are being used. That's against U.S. law, and it should be stopped."
Sep 11, 2024
The parents of Rachel Corrie—the American activist crushed to death by a U.S.-supplied Israeli military bulldozer in 2003 in the illegally occupied West Bank—this week called for an independent investigation into the Israel Defense Force's killing last week of a Turkish American Palestine defender who was volunteering in the territory.
Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old who recently graduated from the University of Washington, was volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)—of which Corrie was a member—when she was shot in the head, allegedly by an IDF sniper, during a demonstration in Beita against Israel's illegal apartheid settlements.
Eyewitnesses said Israeli forces killed Eygi with "a deliberate shot to the head" for no reason.
While admitting that it is "highly likely" that Israeli troops killed the young woman, IDF officials called the killing "unintentional," claiming the fatal shot "was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of... a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks" at occupation forces.
Cindy and Craig Corrie, Rachel's parents, toldThe Guardian Wednesday that Eygi's killing reopened old wounds.
"You feel the ripping apart again of your own family when you know that's happening to another family. There's a hole there that's never going to be filled for each of these families," Craig Corrie told the British newspaper.
"It's very personal," he added. "This one, you know, is very close, and there's so many similarities."
During a Monday interview with Democracy Now! co-host Amy Goodman, Cindy Corrie said news of Eygi's killing was "very disturbing and emotional for us."
"It's a parent's nightmare," she added. "And so, Friday morning, knowing that there was another family... who was getting that same kind of news was just very, very disturbing. And we continue to just feel deeply about what that family is experiencing right now."
U.S. President Joe Biden was widely denounced Tuesday after repeating an IDF claim that Eygi was accidentally killed when a bullet "ricocheted off the ground."
While calling Eygi's killing "totally unacceptable" and "unprovoked and unjustified," Secretary of State Antony Blinken has signaled that there will be no U.S. investigation of the incident, prompting Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—to lament that the Israeli military "can kill Americans and get away with it."
Human rights defenders argue that the U.S. government repeatedly fails to hold Israel accountable or demand justice when it kills Americans. In addition to Corrie and Eygi, Israeli occupation forces have killed U.S. citizens including Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, whose killing was deemed intentional by multiple investigations.
An elderly Palestinian American man, Omar Assad, died in January 2022 after Israeli occupation forces dragged him from his vehicle and then blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed him during a traffic stop in Jiljilya.
No one has been punished for either of these killings.
This year, Israeli forces have killed at least three Americans in the West Bank alone.
As Truthout's Sharon Zhang reported Tuesday:
In January, an Israeli settler and Israeli soldiers killed 17-year-old Tawfiq Ajaq, shooting him in the head while he was on his way to a barbecue in a local grove. Israeli military vehicles prevented an ambulance from reaching him for 15 minutes, and he was pronounced dead on arrival at a medical facility. Ajaq was born in Louisiana, and had only moved to the West Bank nine months prior.
Then, just weeks later, Israeli forces killed Mohammad Khdour, shooting him in the head while he was driving to a hillside where people often held barbecues. Khdour was 17 years old and a senior in high school who hoped to return to the U.S. to study law when he graduated.
"If you're the U.S., you know that there's going to be no accountability from the Israeli side," Bill Van Esveld, the acting Israel/Palestine associate director for Human Rights Watch, told The Guardian. "So the reason [the U.S.] is not pursuing it in cases where there's clear, credible evidence from credible sources of unlawful use of force, lethal force... the only explanation for that is political."
Craig Corrie told Goodman that "it's upsetting to our family to hear our State Department again, and I would expect them to say, that they are trying to find out the facts and looking to Israel for that."
"Israel does not do investigations, they do cover-ups," he stressed.
"Our family worked for an investigation into Rachel's killing, and we wanted some consequences out of that," Corrie added. "And we hoped—even though we didn't know the names of the people that would be killed in the future, we hoped that that would stop and it would not happen."
IDF officials denied intentionally killing Corrie, despite court testimony from army officers that Corrie and other activists were legitimate military targets who were "doomed to death" for resisting Israeli occupation forces during the Second Intifada, or general Palestinian uprising.
The IDF called Corrie's death a "regrettable accident" while blaming the ISM activists for their own harm because they had placed themselves "in a combat zone."
Another ISM campaigner, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head by an IDF sniper in the West Bank as he attempted to rescue Palestinian children from an Israeli tank that was firing in their direction. The shooting—which occurred a month after Corrie's killing—left Hurndall in a coma; he died nine months later in a hospital in his native Britain. Hurndall's killer was convicted in an Israeli court of manslaughter and served six years of an eight year prison sentence.
While Rachel Corrie once wrote that she felt protected by "the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed U.S. citizen," there were no such difficulties, just as there were no repercussions after Israeli warplanes killed 34 American sailors and wounded 173 others during a 1967 attack on the USS Liberty—an attack numerous top U.S. officials believed was deliberate.
Cindy and Craig Corrie sued Israel over their daughter's killing. Their case was dismissed in 2012, with the presiding judge ruling that the activist's death was the "result of an accident she brought upon herself."
Cindy Corrie told Goodman that Blinken—then a national security adviser to then-Vice President Biden—told them in 2010 that there had "not been a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation" into Rachel's case.
Craig Corrie called for more than just an investigation into Eygi's killing.
"There needs to be consequences," he told Goodman. "These are American weapons that are being used. That's against U.S. law, and it should be stopped."
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Massive London March Demands Israeli Arms Embargo After Police Drop Restrictions
"We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now," said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Sep 07, 2024
Thousands of people gathered at London's Picadilly Circus Saturday for the city's latest march against Israel's bombardment of Gaza and the United Kingdom's continued support for the Israel Defense Forces, following what organizers called "a major victory in defense of the democratic right to protest."
The Metropolitan Police on Friday dropped its restrictions on the march, which was the first pro-Palestinian protest since last October to proceed to the Israeli embassy in London.
The police had attempted to stop campaigners from gathering before 2:30 pm, conflicting with plans to begin the rally preceding the march at noon.
"They never provided any convincing explanation or evidence for this delay, and it has caused enormous, unnecessary difficulty to the organization of a large-scale demonstration," Ben Jamal, who leads the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the groups organizing the march, toldMiddle East Eye on Friday.
"It has unfortunately been part of a pattern of obstruction, delay, and lack of communication on the part of the Met which we will press them to review and reflect on for future demonstrations," he added. "For tomorrow, we call on our supporters to turn out in their hundreds of thousands to show we will not be deterred from seeking an end to Israel's genocide and justice for Palestine!"
Jamal said the police "saw sense and abandoned their unjustified and impractical attempt to delay the start of the march by two hours on Saturday," allowing the march to begin at 1:30 pm.
During previous marches in which hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated in solidarity with Palestinians since last October, police have blocked off the area surrounding the Israeli embassy in Kensington, threatening anyone who protested in the vicinity with arrest.
Marching to the embassy, demonstrators made a "renewed call to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza" and demanded an "immediate and full cessation of arms supplies to Israel."
Earlier this week, the U.K. government announced it was suspending approximately 30 of its 350 arms export licenses for Israel, saying that "there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law."
Human rights advocates, medical professionals working in Gaza, and legal experts have for months demanded that Israel's top international funders, including the U.S. and U.K., stop providing military aid as Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza and waged attacks on civilian infrastructure, killing more than 40,000 people.
The country has also been accused of carrying out genocide in a case led by South Africa at the International Court of Justice; the court has ordered Israel to end its blockade on humanitarian aid and to prevent genocide in Gaza.
"We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now," said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
As Londoners marched on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that at least 61 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the last two days. Four people were killed in a strike on Halimah al-Saadiyah school in Jabaliya, where displaced Palestinians have been sheltering, and three were killed in a bombing at Amr Ibn al-As school in Gaza City.
Media outlets in Palestine reported that a baby named Yaqeen al-Astal had become the 37th child in Gaza to die of malnutrition since Israel began its near-total aid blockade.
International outrage also grew on Saturday regarding the killing of a Turkish American activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, in the West Bank on Friday. Local media and eyewitnesses said Eygi had been deliberately shot in the head by Israeli forces at a protest over the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
The U.S. called on Israel to investigate the killing on Friday, but Eygi's family said in a statement that such a probe would not be "adequate."
"We call on President [Joe] Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties," said the family.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations, called for "a full investigation of the circumstances" and said that "people should be held accountable. And again, civilians must be protected at all times."
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