White House ‘furious’ over Israeli killing of Ayşenur Eygi, but guards against consequences

Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris expressed outrage on Wednesday after Israel admitted responsibility for the killing of American activist Ayşenur Eygi in the West Bank, but refused to take necessary action and threatened not to do so for the country, which the US is supplying with weapons unconditionally.

Before Wednesday morning, the White House had faced mounting public criticism for waiting days to speak out after an Israeli sniper shot 26-year-old Eygi in the head on Friday as she volunteered at a protest against illegal settlement expansion in Beita, a village in the West Bank city of Nablus.

In his statement, Biden said he was “outraged and heartbroken” by Eygi’s killing, while Harris called her death a “terrible tragedy” that should never have happened. Both figures called the shooting unacceptable.

“Ayşenur was a recent American college graduate. She was also an activist whose idealism led her to travel to the West Bank to peacefully protest settlement expansion,” Biden said of the Seattle native, who helped organize pro-Palestinian campus protests as a graduate student at the University of Washington. Eygi went on to join the International Solidarity Movement, a human rights group whose members serve as international observers and protection volunteers, ensuring Palestinians can safely protest the occupation.

“No one should be killed for participating in a peaceful protest,” Harris said, adding that she keeps Eygi’s family and loved ones in her prayers.

Eygi’s family confirmed Wednesday morning that Biden and Harris had yet to call them personally to offer their condolences, a departure from the president’s typically swift communication with Americans who have suffered a loss.

“President Biden has said, ‘If you harm an American, we will respond.’ On September 9, the State Department stated, ‘when it comes to protecting our citizens and our personnel, if they are targeted, we will obviously take appropriate action,'” the family said in response to the White House statements.

They continued: “Let us be clear, an American citizen was killed by a foreign military in a targeted attack. The appropriate action is for President Biden and Vice President Harris to speak directly to the family and order an independent, transparent investigation into the killing of Ayşenur, a volunteer for peace.”

The Foreign Ministry earlier this week declined to provide details about Eygi’s killing, saying instead that officials wanted to wait until the Israeli military had completed its preliminary investigation. Israel often investigates itself under pressure from the international community, but such investigations have rarely led to accountability and consequences. Eygi’s family has repeatedly called for an independent investigation into her death.

Israel announced the results of its preliminary investigation on Tuesday, saying it was “highly likely” that an Israeli soldier shot Eygi “indirectly and unintentionally” while trying to hit “the main instigator of the riot.” The military said it had opened a criminal investigation and “expressed its deepest regrets” for the activist’s killing.

Both Eygi’s family and fellow activists, including some who volunteered with her at the protest, criticized Israel for what her family called the “grossly inadequate” internal investigation into the shooting, which “cannot be explained as anything other than a deliberate, targeted and precise attack by the military on an unarmed civilian.”

Witnesses said an Israeli sniper standing on a rooftop about 230 meters away shot Eygi in the head as she and a Palestinian teenager stood in an olive grove. This happened more than half an hour after fighting between protesters and the army had subsided more than 270 meters away.

“We will always remember Ayşenur as the kind-hearted, foolish and passionate soul whose face expressed all those qualities,” her family said. “We cannot speak about what happened to those expressions when her temple met a bullet fired by a trained Israeli soldier.”

Biden and Harris both appeared to accept Israel’s conclusion at face value, saying Eygi’s killing was the result of a “tragic mistake.” The U.S. has full access to the preliminary investigation and expects continued access during the criminal investigation, “so we can have confidence in the outcome,” the president said.

A day earlier, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Eygi’s killing was “unprovoked and unjustified” and that the Israeli military should make “some fundamental changes” in the way it operates in the West Bank.

Eygi’s family on Wednesday sharply criticized Biden for believing Israel’s conclusion that the killing was unintentional.

“Ayşenur was an international observer who witnessed ‘violent extremist Israeli settlers’ [who] “Palestinians from their homes” – words President Biden himself used today,” the family said. “Despite this, President Biden continues to call her death an accident based solely on the Israeli military’s narrative. This is not only callous and false, it is complicity in the Israeli military’s agenda to take Palestinian land and whitewash the murder of an American.”

Neither Biden, Harris nor Blinken have threatened Israel with sanctions for killing an unarmed American citizen. This is consistent with the administration’s handling of the Israeli government’s repeated violations of international law, particularly since October 2023, when Israel launched its devastating offensive in Gaza in response to a Hamas assault in southern Israel that has killed some 1,200 people and captured some 250 hostages, an estimated 100 of whom have still not been released.

Since Israel began its blockade on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 people and displaced more than 90% of the population, according to local health officials, Palestinians in the West Bank have also faced a wave of violence and forced evictions by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Biden said Wednesday that “violence in the West Bank has gone on for too long.”

Between October 7, 2023, and September 9, 2024, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 674 Palestinians in the West Bank, the United Nations said. During the same period, 276 Palestinian households were displaced in the context of Israeli settler attacks in the area, the UN said. The International Court of Justice ruled in July that Israel is violating international law by continuing to occupy Palestinian territories.