U.S. expects thorough and transparent Israeli probe into American’s killing

The U.S. government expects Israel to investigate what happened when an American citizen was killed during a protest in the West Bank and for the results to be public, “thorough and transparent,” a State Department spokesman said Monday.

“We still don’t know with full certainty what transpired and what happened, and that’s why we are working to get as much information as we can,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said.

He said the U.S. is also “encouraging our partners in Israel to quickly and robustly conduct and conclude their process and make their findings public so we can understand what happened.”

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, a recent graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle, was shot and killed Friday during a demonstration against the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, the International Solidarity Movement said.

The Israeli Defense Forces has said that it “responded with fire toward a main instigator” who was hurling rocks and that it “is looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area.”

Eygi’s family said that she was peacefully demonstrating when she was killed and that video shows the bullet came from an Israeli military shooter. They called for an independent U.S.-ordered investigation and said an Israeli investigation would not be enough.

Patel said that Israel is conducting an investigation and that the State Department expects a formal process for releasing findings. He said the safety of American citizens is the department’s highest priority.

“Our understanding is that our partners in Israel are looking into the circumstances of what happened,” Patel said. “And we expect them to make their findings public and expect that whatever those findings are, expect them to be thorough and transparent.”

Patel said that if there were to be an American investigation, it would be conducted not by the State Department but by the Justice Department.

Also Monday, on the other side of Israel in devastated Gaza, where Israel has been carrying out a war against Hamas after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, there were accusations that Israeli’s army delayed a truck with needed polio vaccine doses.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said a convoy was delayed by eight hours.

“The convoy was stopped at gun point just after the Wadi Gaza checkpoint with threats to detain UN staff,” Lazzarini said on X. “Heavy damage was caused by bulldozers to the UN armoured vehicles.”

He said that the convoy was headed to northern Gaza to vaccinate children there and that the convoy had “prior detailed coordination.”

Lazzarini said all staff members and the convoy have been released, but he called the incident the “latest in a series of violations against UN staff,” including shootings and arrests.

Polio has been found in wastewater samples in Gaza, and in August a 10-month-old baby was confirmed with the first case of polio in Gaza, which is suffering a sanitation crisis in the war, officials said. Gaza had been polio-free for 25 years.

Conditions in Gaza have deteriorated since Israel’s campaign began in the enclave since the Hamas attack. Roughly 1,200 people were killed and 250 more were taken hostage in the terror attack, according to Israeli officials, who have said dozens remain captive. 

The bodies of six hostages, including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were recovered in a tunnel under Rafah late last month.

In Gaza, local officials have said more than 40,000 people have been killed since Israeli forces launched its offensive in response to the Hamas attacks.