ADDS REMARKS BY RASHIDA TLAIB, SECRETARY OF STATE
By Diyar Guldogan
WASHINGTON (AA) - US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday to "do something" after the killing of a Turkish-American activist by the Israeli army in the northern occupied West Bank.
"@SecBlinken: Do something to save lives!" Tlaib wrote on X.
Her remarks came after Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot dead by Israeli forces during a protest Friday against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita in the Nablus district of the occupied West Bank.
In a separate post addressed to the US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, Tlaib said: "Hey how’d they die, Matt? Was it magic? Who or what killed Aysenur? Asking on behalf of Americans who want to know.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who addressed the killing during a visit to the Dominican Republic, extended his "deepest" condolences of the US to the family of Eygi.
"We deplore this tragic loss. Now the most important thing to do is to gather the facts, and that’s exactly what we’re in the process of doing, and we are intensely focused on getting those facts,” he said at a news conference. “I have no higher priority than the safety and protection of American citizens around the world."
Tlaib responded that those remarks: "Complete and utter failure in keeping Americans safe."
The White House said it is "deeply disturbed" by the fatal shooting of Eygi, 26, and has formally requested Israel to investigate her death.
Fouad Nafaa, the director of the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, told Anadolu that Eygi arrived at the facility with a gunshot wound to the head. She died from her injuries despite attempts by medical teams to revive her, according to Nafaa.
Witnesses reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of Palestinians participating in a demonstration condemning the illegal settlements on Mount Sbeih in Beita, which lies south of the city of Nablus.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa confirmed that the victim was a volunteer with the Fazaa campaign -- an initiative aimed at supporting and protecting Palestinian farmers from ongoing violations by illegal Israeli settlers and the military.
Residents of Beita hold weekly protests after Friday prayers to oppose the illegal Israeli settlement of Avitar, which sits on the peak of Mount Sbeih. The community demands the removal of the settlement, which they view as a violation of their land rights.
Eygi was born in the Turkish city of Antalya in 1998, and graduated from the University of Washington in 2024.