The family of an American woman killed in a protest in the occupied West Bank demanded an independent investigation on Saturday, saying Israel could not conduct an impartial investigation into her death after witnesses and Palestinian officials accused Israeli soldiers of killing her.
A 26-year-old woman, Aysenur Izi Igi, was shot in the head in Bita, a village in the West Bank, during a protest against an Israeli settlement post on Friday. In a statementHer family said that “given the circumstances of Aysenur’s murder, the Israeli investigation is not adequate.”
“We call on President Biden, Vice President Harris and Secretary of State Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a US citizen and ensure full accountability for the guilty parties,” said the statement, which was posted on Instagram. A friend, Juliet Majid.
Ms. Iggy’s death marked a landmark incident in 2003, when a 23-year-old activist named Rachel Corey Crushed by an Israeli armored bulldozer During protests in the Gaza Strip. Like Ms. Iggy, Ms. Corey was a resident of Washington State, and both were involved with the International Solidarity Movement, a nonviolent group resisting the Israeli occupation.
Ms Iggy’s family described her as “a fiercely passionate human rights activist” who “felt a deep responsibility to serve others and lived a life of caring for those in need of action.”
On Friday, friends of Ms Iggy said she wanted the world to recognize that shootings like the one that killed her were not uncommon in the occupied Palestinian territories. According to the United Nations, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 600 people in the West Bank since the war in Gaza began last year.
“She was active in student-led protests on campus, advocating for human dignity and calling for an end to violence against the people of Palestine,” the statement said. “Aisenour felt compelled to travel to the West Bank to stand in solidarity with Palestinian citizens who continue to endure ongoing repression and violence.”
Friends said Ms. Iggy’s activism began in her teens, when she protested the construction of an oil pipeline through the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.
After the Gaza war broke out, she helped organize protests on campus at the University of Washington, where earlier this year she earned a degree in psychology with a minor in Middle Eastern languages and cultures.
The friend who posted the family statement, Ms. “Aysenur was very hardworking and very passionate about justice,” said Majid. “Her loss is greatly felt.”
She said Ms Iggy was an experienced activist who was not naive about the risks of joining protests in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “I think she knew about the risks,” Ms Majid said.
Ms. Iggy was born in Turkey but raised in the Seattle area. An uncle, Samal Burden, said her family immigrated to the United States from Antalya, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, when she was less than a year old.
Mr Burden said he told Ms Egge that traveling to Jerusalem and the West Bank could be dangerous. “My niece was such a pure, good child,” he said in a telephone interview.
There have been repeated protests in Bita, a village near Nablus, since 2021, when Israeli settlers seized nearby hilltop land that Palestinian villagers said had long belonged to them.
Since the Hilltop Outpost, now known as Ivyatar, many protesters have been killed, and many more injured. The Israeli government recently said it would legalize the outpost.
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