US-Turkish woman, 26, shot dead at West Bank protest

A US-Turkish dual national has been shot dead reportedly by Israeli troops while participating in a protest against settler expansion in the occupied West Bank.

- Bethan McKernan

Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old volunteer with the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement, died in hospital yesterday after being shot in the head during a protest in Beita near Nablus, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Witnesses said the US citizen had been shot at by Israeli soldiers positioned in a nearby field after "minor clashes" broke out. Troops surrounded a group of praying people, and Palestinians began to throw stones, which the soldiers responded to with teargas and live ammunition.

The Israel Defense Forces said they were looking into the report that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an "instigator of violent activity".

Fayez Abdul Jabbar, a paramedic, told Al-Quds News Network: "We usually have weekly confrontations [in the area]. During these confrontations, the army fired two live bullets: one hit a foreigner, and the other hit another person, whose injury is less severe." Eygi was treated in the car on the way to hospital, he added.

Fouad Nafaa, the director of the Rafidia hospital in Nablus, said doctors had tried to resuscitate Eygi but she died on the operating table.