Palestinians from Beita, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have been gathering every week since October for demonstrations against the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and Israeli occupation of Palestine more broadly. The villagers gather to pray, then march to the Israeli soldiers stationed at a nearby Israeli settlement — one of 300 throughout the West Bank, which the International Court of Justice has deemed illegal, yet the Israeli government persists in expanding. The villagers of Beita gather, pray, march and chant to demonstrate their opposition to the nearby settlement, as well as their resolve to lose no more of their land to settlers.
At one of the weekly protests this month, the villagers were accompanied by volunteer observers from the United States, including Vivi Chen and Aysenur Eygi. Both the villagers and the observers at the September 6 gathering soon came under fire from Israeli soldiers, as Chen described to Truthout. Villagers and observers alike were driven back by a combination of live ammunition and tear gas, forced to take cover downhill from the soldiers, where it was quiet enough for them to make out the first shot of an Israeli sniper, which struck a dumpster shielding a villager. Chen was unsure if one or two shots followed, but Eygi, who was behind an olive tree, suddenly fell, after a bullet struck her in the head.
“It was a headshot to kill,” said Chen. “All the Palestinian medics who were on site, as well as me and another volunteer, went to her. We were able to feel a weak pulse in both her wrist and her neck, but … her eyes were rolling in the back of her head. She pretty much collapsed unconscious immediately.”
Palestinian paramedics rushed Eygi to a hospital in nearby Nablus, but she could not be resuscitated. Like Chen and other U.S. observers, Eygi had come to the West Bank as part of a movement in solidarity with Palestinians resisting the ongoing Israeli-inflicted genocide and occupation. She had arrived in the West Bank just days before she was killed, underscoring the danger to life and limb that the Israeli occupation presents to Palestinians and their allies alike.
Since the attack by Palestinian militants on Israel in October, Israeli forces have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, including 16,500 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, as cited by Al Jazeera. The true toll of the genocide, obscured by the ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade, may be as high as 335,500 deaths, according to estimates published in The Guardian. The genocide comes amid the ongoing Israeli occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1967, even though they are internationally recognized as Palestinian territory. Israel has entrenched its occupation by allowing the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Eygi was in the........