RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Israeli military said Tuesday an American activist killed in the West Bank last week was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers, drawing a strong rebuke from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the activist’s family.
Israel said a criminal investigation has been launched into the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who was taking part in a demonstration against settlements. Doctors who treated Eygi, who also held Turkish citizenship, said she was shot in the head.
Blinken condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified” killing when asked about the Israeli inquiry at a news conference in London. “No one should be shot while attending a protest,” he said. “The Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank.”
Eygi’s family in the US released a statement saying “we are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional. The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling.”
During Friday’s demonstration, clashes broke out between Palestinians throwing stones and Israeli troops firing tear gas and ammunition, according to Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting of Eygi.
Pollak said the violence had subsided about a half hour before Eygi was shot, after protesters and activists had withdrawn several hundred meters (yards) away from the site of the demonstration. Pollak said he saw two Israeli soldiers mount the roof of a nearby home, train a gun in the group’s direction and fire, with one bullet hitting Eygi.
Israel said its inquiry into Eygi’s killing “found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by (Israeli army) fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.” It expressed its “deepest regret” at her death.
International Solidarity Movement, the activist group Egyi was volunteering with, said it “entirely rejects” the Israeli statement and that the “shot was aimed directly at her.”
The killing came amid a surge of violence in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and heavier military crackdowns on Palestinian protests.
Israel says it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians and holds them accountable. It says soldiers often have to make split-second decisions while operating in areas where militants hide among civilians. But human rights groups say soldiers are very rarely prosecuted, and even in the most shocking cases — and those captured on video — they often get relatively light sentences.
The Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession for Eygi in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Turkish authorities said they are working on repatriating her body to Turkiye for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, as per her family’s wishes.
Eygi’s uncle said in an interview with the Turkish TV channel HaberTurk that she kept her visit to the West Bank secret from at least some of her family members. She said she was traveling to Jordan to help Palestinians there, he said.
“She hid the fact that she was going to Palestine. She blocked us from her social media posts so that we would not see them,” Yilmaz Eygi said.
The deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp.
Several independent investigations and reporting by The Associated Press determined that Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire. Months later, the military said there was a “high probability” one of its soldiers had mistakenly killed her but that no one would be punished.
In January 2022, Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American, died of a heart attack after Israeli troops at a checkpoint dragged him from his car and made him lie facedown, bound, temporarily gagged and blindfolded. The military ruled out criminal charges and said it was reprimanding one commander and removing two others from leadership roles for two years.
The US had planned to sanction a military unit linked to abuses of Palestinians in the West Bank but ended up dropping the plan.
The deaths of Palestinians who do not have dual nationality rarely receive the same scrutiny.
Human rights groups say Israel military investigations into Palestinians’ deaths reflect a pattern of impunity. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli watchdog, became so frustrated that in 2016 it halted its decades-long practice of assisting investigations and called them a “whitewash.”
Last year, an Israeli court acquitted a member of the paramilitary Border Police charged with reckless manslaughter in the deadly shooting of 32-year-old Eyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City in 2020. The case had drawn comparisons to the police killing of George Floyd in the United States.
In 2017, Israeli soldier Elor Azaria was convicted for manslaughter and served nine months after he killed a wounded, incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the West Bank city of Hebron. The combat medic was caught on video fatally shooting Abdel Fattah Al-Sharif, who was lying motionless on the ground.
That case deeply divided Israelis, with the military saying Azaria had clearly violated its code of ethics, while many Israelis — particularly on the nationalist right — defended his actions and accused military brass of second-guessing a soldier operating in dangerous conditions.
Israeli military says it likely killed US-Turkish activist unintentionally
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Israeli military says it likely killed US-Turkish activist unintentionally
- The military said its inquiry “found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by (Israeli army) fire which was not aimed at her”
- The White House had earlier said it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing of Eygi
Winter is hitting Gaza and many Palestinians have little protection from the cold
- Nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 14-month Israeli offensive
- The UN warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter
There is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing, little wood for fires, and the tents and patched-together tarps families are living in have grown increasingly threadbare after months of heavy use, according to aid workers and residents.
Shadia Aiyada, who was displaced from the southern city of Rafah to the coastal area of Muwasi, has only one blanket and a hot water bottle to keep her eight children from shivering inside their fragile tent.
“We get scared every time we learn from the weather forecast that rainy and windy days are coming up because our tents are lifted with the wind. We fear that strong windy weather would knock out our tents one day while we’re inside,” she said.
With nighttime temperatures that can drop into the 40s (the mid-to-high single digits Celsius), Aiyada fears that her kids will get sick without warm clothing.
When they fled their home, her children only had their summer clothes, she said. They have been forced to borrow some from relatives and friends to keep warm.
The United Nations warns of people living in precarious makeshift shelters that might not survive the winter. At least 945,000 people need winterization supplies, which have become prohibitively expensive in Gaza, the UN said in an update Tuesday. The UN also fears infectious disease, which spiked last winter, will climb again amid rising malnutrition.
The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA, has been planning all year for winter in Gaza, but the aid it was able to get into the territory is “not even close to being enough for people,” said Louise Wateridge, an agency spokeswoman.
UNRWA distributed 6,000 tents over the past four weeks in northern Gaza but was unable to get them to other parts of the Strip, including areas where there has been fighting. About 22,000 tents have been stuck in Jordan and 600,000 blankets and 33 truckloads of mattresses have been sitting in Egypt since the summer because the agency doesn’t have Israeli approval or a safe route to bring them into Gaza and because it had to prioritize desperately needed food aid, Wateridge said.
Many of the mattresses and blankets have since been looted or destroyed by the weather and rodents, she said.
The International Rescue Committee is struggling to bring in children’s winter clothing because there “are a lot of approvals to get from relevant authorities,” said Dionne Wong, the organization’s deputy director of programs for the occupied Palestinian territories.
“The ability for Palestinians to prepare for winter is essentially very limited,” Wong said.
The Israeli government agency responsible for coordinating aid shipments into Gaza said in a statement that Israel has worked for months with international organizations to prepare Gaza for the winter, including facilitating the shipment of heaters, warm clothing, tents and blankets into the territory.
More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry’s count doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war was sparked by Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel, where the militant group killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in Gaza.
Negotiators say Israel and Hamas are inching toward a ceasefire deal, which would include a surge in aid into the territory.
For now, the winter clothing for sale in Gaza’s markets is far too expensive for most people to afford, residents and aid workers said.
Reda Abu Zarada, 50, who was displaced from northern Gaza with her family, said the adults sleep with the children in their arms to keep them warm inside their tent.
“Rats walk on us at night because we don’t have doors and tents are torn. The blankets don’t keep us warm. We feel frost coming out from the ground. We wake up freezing in the morning,” she said. “I’m scared of waking up one day to find one of the children frozen to death.”
On Thursday night, she fought through knee pain exacerbated by cold weather to fry zucchini over a fire made of paper and cardboard scraps outside their tent. She hoped the small meal would warm the children before bed.
Omar Shabet, who is displaced from Gaza City and staying with his three children, feared that lighting a fire outside his tent would make his family a target for Israeli warplanes.
“We go inside our tents after sunset and don’t go out because it is very cold and it gets colder by midnight,” he said. “My 7-year-old daughter almost cries at night because of how cold she is.”
American pilots in ‘friendly fire’ incident as US military hits Houthi targets in Sanaa
- Houthis have targeted international shipping in Red Sea to impose Israel’s naval blockade
- The group that controls large parts of Yemen hit Tel Aviv with a missile strike, injuring 16 people
DUBAI: Two US Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said Sunday. Both pilots were recovered alive, with one suffering minor injuries in the incident.
The incident came as the US military conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels, though the US military’s Central Command did not elaborate on what their mission was at the time.
“The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18, which was flying off the USS Harry S. Truman,” Central Command said in a statement.
The command said on X, shortly after midnight local time: “CENTCOM forces conducted the deliberate strikes to disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden,”
The video released by the US military showed a jet taking off from a carrier.
“During the operation, CENTCOM forces also shot down multiple Houthi one way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles (OWA UAV) and an anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) over the Red Sea.”
Videos on social media showed people fleeing large explosions in the capital, but Arab News could not immediately verify the authenticity of the footage.
The command said that US air and naval assets were used in the operation, including F/A-18s, adding the “strike reflects CENTCOM's ongoing commitment to protect U.S. and coalition personnel, regional partners, and international shipping.”
The Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, seized the capital in 2014 and have been conducting drone and missile attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea in an effort to impose a naval blockade on Israel, who, for more than a year, has been carrying out a devastating war against Hamas in Gaza.
Earlier on Saturday, a Houthi missile hit Tel Aviv, injuring 16 people.
Syrian soldiers distance themselves from Assad in return for promised amnesty
- Lt. Col. Walid Abd Rabbo, who works with the new Interior Ministry, said the army has been dissolved and the interim government has not decided yet on whether those “whose hands are not tainted in blood” can apply to join the military again
DAMASCUS, Syria: Hundreds of former Syrian soldiers on Saturday reported to the country’s new rulers for the first time since Bashar Assad was ousted to answer questions about whether they may have been involved in crimes against civilians in exchange for a promised amnesty and return to civilian life.
The former soldiers trooped to what used to be the head office in Damascus of Assad’s Baath party that had ruled Syria for six decades. They were met with interrogators, former insurgents who stormed Damascus on Dec. 8, and given a list of questions and a registration number. They were free to leave.
Some members of the defunct military and security services waiting outside the building told The Associated Press that they had joined Assad’s forces because it meant a stable monthly income and free medical care.
The fall of Assad took many by surprise as tens of thousands of soldiers and members of security services failed to stop the advancing insurgents. Now in control of the country, and Assad in exile in Russia, the new authorities are investigating atrocities by Assad’s forces, mass graves and an array of prisons run by the military, intelligence and security agencies notorious for systematic torture, mass executions and brutal conditions.
Lt. Col. Walid Abd Rabbo, who works with the new Interior Ministry, said the army has been dissolved and the interim government has not decided yet on whether those “whose hands are not tainted in blood” can apply to join the military again. The new leaders have vowed to punish those responsible for crimes against Syrians under Assad.
Several locations for the interrogation and registration of former soldiers were opened in other parts of Syria in recent days.
“Today I am coming for the reconciliation and don’t know what will happen next,” said Abdul-Rahman Ali, 43, who last served in the northern city of Aleppo until it was captured by insurgents in early December.
“We received orders to leave everything and withdraw,” he said. “I dropped my weapon and put on civilian clothes,” he said, adding that he walked 14 hours until he reached the central town of Salamiyeh, from where he took a bus to Damascus.
Ali, who was making 700,000 pounds ($45) a month in Assad’s army, said he would serve his country again.
Inside the building, men stood in short lines in front of four rooms where interrogators asked each a list of questions on a paper.
“I see regret in their eyes,” an interrogator told AP as he questioned a soldier who now works at a shawarma restaurant in the Damascus suburb of Harasta. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to media.
The interrogator asked the soldier where his rifle is and the man responded that he left it at the base where he served. He then asked for and was handed the soldier’s military ID.
“He has become a civilian,” the interrogator said, adding that the authorities will carry out their own investigation before questioning the same soldier again within weeks to make sure there are no changes in the answers that he gave on Saturday.
The interrogator said after nearly two hours that he had quizzed 20 soldiers and the numbers are expected to increase in the coming days.
Israel accuses Pope of ‘double standards’, after Gaza criticism
JERUSALEM: Israel accused Pope Francis of “double standards” Saturday after he condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as “cruelty” following an air strike that killed seven children from one family.
“The Pope’s remarks are particularly disappointing as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel’s fight against jihadist terrorism — a multi-front war that was forced upon it starting on October 7,” an Israeli foreign ministry statement said.
“Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people.”
Gaza’s civil defense rescue agency had reported that an Israeli air strike killed 10 members of a family on Friday in the northern part of the Palestinian territory, including seven children.
“Yesterday they did not allow the Patriarch (of Jerusalem) into Gaza as promised. Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” he told members of the government of the Holy See.
“I want to say it because it touches my heart.”
The Israeli statement said: “Cruelty is terrorists hiding behind children while trying to murder Israeli children; cruelty is holding 100 hostages for 442 days, including a baby and children, by terrorists and abusing them,” a reference to the Palestinian Hamas militants who attacked Israel and took hostages on October 7, 2023, triggering the Gaza war.
“Unfortunately, the Pope has chosen to ignore all of this,” the Israeli ministry said.
American pilots in ‘friendly fire’ incident as US military hits Houthi targets in Sanaa
DUBAI: Two US Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said Sunday. Both pilots were recovered alive, with one suffering minor injuries in the incident.
The incident came as the US military conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels, though the US military’s Central Command did not elaborate on what their mission was at the time.
“The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18, which was flying off the USS Harry S. Truman,” Central Command said in a statement.
The command said on X, shortly after midnight local time: “CENTCOM forces conducted the deliberate strikes to disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden,”
The video released by the US military showed a jet taking off from a carrier.
“During the operation, CENTCOM forces also shot down multiple Houthi one way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles (OWA UAV) and an anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) over the Red Sea.”
Videos on social media showed people fleeing large explosions in the capital, but Arab News could not immediately verify the authenticity of the footage.
The command said that US air and naval assets were used in the operation, including F/A-18s, adding the “strike reflects CENTCOM's ongoing commitment to protect U.S. and coalition personnel, regional partners, and international shipping.”
The Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, seized the capital in 2014 and have been conducting drone and missile attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea in an effort to impose a naval blockade on Israel, who, for more than a year, has been carrying out a devastating war against Hamas in Gaza.
Earlier on Saturday, a Houthi missile hit Tel Aviv, injuring 16 people.
