Israel’s military has said it was highly likely its troops fired the shot that killed Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the American-Turkish woman killed at a protest in the occupied West Bank.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said her death was unintentional and expressed deep regret.
The statement came as Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, called the killing of the 26-year-old last week “unprovoked and unjustified”.
Speaking on a diplomatic visit to London, Blinken told journalists that Eygi’s death showed the Israeli security forces needed to make fundamental changes to their rules of engagement.
“No one should be shot and killed for attending a protest,” he said, in one of his harshest comments to date against the IDF.
Turkish and Palestinian officials said Israeli troops shot Eygi, a volunteer with the activist group International Solidarity Movement (ISM), during a demonstration on Friday against settlement expansion in Beita, a village near Nablus.
On Tuesday, the IDF said commanders had conducted an investigation into the incident.
“The inquiry found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot,” the military said. “The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tyres and hurled rocks towards security forces at the Beita junction.
“The IDF expresses its deepest regret over the death of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi,” it added.
Beita residents gave a different account, saying a group of demonstrators had gathered, as they had every Friday for midday prayers, to protest against Eyvatar, an Israeli settlement on the next hill built on land belonging to Palestinian farmers.
On this occasion, there were about 20 Palestinians from Beita, 10 foreign volunteers from the ISM, including Eygi, and about a dozen children from the district.
“The kids were throwing stones here at the junction, and the soldiers fired teargas at them,” Mahmud Abdullah, a 43-year-old resident said. “Everyone scattered and ran into the olive grove and then there were two shots.”
Neighbours pointed out the spot where Eygi was shot and a house on a ridge where they said the bullet came from.
The owner, Ali Mohali, said soldiers had gone on to his roof, 200 metres from where Eygi was shot. He said he heard one shot, but was not sure if there had been a second shot from that position.
Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli participating in Friday’s protest, said the shooting occurred shortly after clashes broke out, with Palestinians throwing stones and troops firing teargas and live ammunition.
The protesters and activists retreated and clashes subdued, he said. He then watched as two soldiers on the roof of a nearby home trained a gun in the group’s direction and fired. He said he saw Eygi “lying on the ground, next to an olive tree, bleeding to death”.
At the University of Washington, where Eygi recently graduated with a degree in psychology, Aria Fani, a professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures, said she had been active earlier in the year at a pro-Palestinian encampment.
Fani said he had tried to talk Eygi out of going to the West Bank but that she told him “she needed to bear witness for the sake of her own humanity”.
Human rights groups say Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians, or their foreign supporters, are rarely held to account. The Israeli military says it investigates and acts if criminal wrongdoing is found.
Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law but Israel contests this.
Associated Press, Agence France Press and Reuters contributed reporting