President Joe Biden on Tuesday described the killing of a 26-year-old American activist in the Israeli-occupied West Bank last week as an apparent accident, backing the Israel government’s description.
Israel has claimed that Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire” on Friday. Biden said his administration was still looking into her death.
“We’re finding more detail,” Biden told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday. “Apparently, it was an accident. It ricocheted off the ground and it – (she) got hit by accident, but we’re working that out now.”
US officials have sharply criticized Israel for the death of Eygi, who was shot dead at a protest. Earlier Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said her death was “unprovoked and unjustified” and called for Israel to make “fundamental changes” to how it operates in the West Bank.
“No one, no one should be shot and killed for attending a protest. No one should have to put their life at risk just for expressing their views,” he said. “Now we have the second American citizen killed at the hands of Israeli security forces. It’s not acceptable. It has to change. And we’ll be making that clear to the senior-most members of the Israeli government.”
The IDF in an earlier statement said Eygi was killed amid a “violent riot,” while the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), with whom Eygi had been volunteering, described the September 6 protest as peaceful.
Eygi’s family responded to Biden’s remarks Tuesday, saying the activist’s death was “no accident.”
“For four days, we have waited for President Biden to pick up the phone and do the right thing: To call us, offer his condolences, and let us know that he is ordering an independent investigation of the killing of Ayşenur,” Hamid Ali, Eygi’s partner, said. “This was no accident and her killers must be held accountable.”
Eygi, who was born in Turkey, was a recent graduate of the University of Washington and had been volunteering with the same pro-Palestinian activist group as Rachel Corrie, a US citizen killed in 2003 while attempting to stop an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing Palestinian homes in Gaza.
Israeli troops and settlers have killed nearly 700 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.
This story has been updated with comment from Eygi’s family.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
