Family members gather to mourn around the body of 13-year-old Bana Laboum in the West Bank village of Qaryut on Saturday. Laboum's father and the Palestinian Health Ministry said she was shot and killed by Israeli forces on Friday. The military acknowledged opening fire and said the incident was “under review.” (Heidi Levine/The Washington Post)
BEITA, West Bank — Palestinian authorities Saturday began gathering testimony from witnesses to the shooting death of a U.S. citizen the day before in the West Bank, residents, officials and a volunteer activist said. Aysenur Eygi, 26, was killed Friday at a protest in Beita, where witnesses said she was shot in the head by Israeli forces who had opened fire.
The White House said it was “deeply disturbed” by her death and that U.S. officials had contacted Israel to request an investigation.
On Saturday, a representative of the Palestinian attorney general took affidavits from Beita residents, medics and international activists who were present when she was killed, according to Hisham Dweikat, a member of the Palestinian National Council who lives in the town, and Rob Sadler, a rights activist from Britain who attended the protest.
Later, Dweikat, who was also there when Eygi was shot, said he was contacted by someone from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem who “asked him for every detail of what happened.” Israeli forces also returned to the scene, near the West Bank city of Nablus, to take photos and measurements and ask at least one resident, Mahmoud Abdullah, 43, for any video footage or cameras.
In a statement Friday, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged firing on an individual in the area where the protest took place, but only said it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed.” It did not respond to a request for comment Saturday on the status of its review.
Eygi, who recently graduated from the University of Washington, was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group, and was attending a communal prayer with Beita residents protesting the expansion of a nearby Jewish settlement, her colleagues said.
Israeli soldiers began firing tear gas at the crowd and Eygi and fellow volunteers retreated to a nearby olive grove, where they stayed and waited for calm, even as they observed troops taking positions on surrounding rooftops.
It was then when the shots rang out and Eygi, bleeding from the head, dropped to the ground, said Sadler and Israeli political activist, Jonathan Pollack, who said he rushed to her aid.
“I saw her about 10 seconds before she was shot,” Sadler said in an interview Saturday. “She smiled at me and she gave me a thumbs up.”
Beita resident Ali Mohali said the Israeli military often takes over his rooftop during demonstrations and that soldiers were at his house Friday. He said he heard a gunshot that shook his home - one he believes may have killed Eygi. The Washington Post could not independently verify his claim.
Eygi’s family said in a statement that she “felt compelled to travel to the West Bank to stand in solidarity with Palestinian civilians.”
“She felt a deep responsibility to serve others and lived a life of caring for those in need with action,” the family said. “She was a fiercely passionate human rights activist her whole life - a steadfast and staunch advocate of justice.”
They said they wanted U.S. officials to conduct an independent investigation, saying an “Israeli investigation is not adequate.” The United Nations on Friday also called for a “full investigation” into the circumstances leading to Eygi’s death.
“People should be held accountable,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary general.
Also on Saturday, mourners gathered in the West Bank town of Qaryut, about 20 miles south of Beita, for the funeral of 13-year-old Bana Laboum, who was also shot and killed the day before after Israeli forces arrived in her village. Her father, 47-year-old Amjad Bakar, knelt beside his daughter’s freshly filled grave.
Bakar and the Palestinian Health Ministry said the Israeli military shot Laboum on Friday through the window of her home, after showing up amid a confrontation between Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers.
In a statement Friday, the IDF said it had opened fire and received a report “regarding a Palestinian girl who was killed by shots in the area.”
“An initial inquiry indicates that the Israeli security forces that were dispatched to the scene operated to disperse the riot in the area, including firing shots into the air,” the statement said, adding that “the incident is under review.”
- At least eight people were killed and 15 injured after Israeli warplanes struck a school in northern Gaza early Saturday, according to the state-run Palestinian news agency Wafa. The Halima al-Sadia School had been sheltering displaced people, Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense force, told The Post. The IDF acknowledged the attack and said on social media that it had targeted a Hamas command and control center inside the school compound.
- Roughly 355,000 children in Gaza have been vaccinated against polio since Sept. 1, according to the World Health Organization. The agency and its partners launched a vaccination campaign this month after Israel and Hamas agreed to brief “humanitarian pauses” to allow the vaccinations to take place in designated areas of Gaza amid fears of a wider outbreak.
- At least 40,939 people have been killed and 94,616 injured in Gaza since the war started, the Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday. The agency does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 340 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.
George reported from Beirut, Suliman from London, El Chamaa from Beirut and Jeong from Seoul. Kareem Fahim in Beirut, Hajar Harb in London, and Alon Rom and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed.
