8 September 2024
Yet another courageous person, Ayşenur Eygi, who gave her life for a just cause, that of Palestinian rights, has been killed in action. She joins two other members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, who also stood against Israeli destruction of Palestinian life in its genocidal campaign since 1948 to Judaize Palestine.
She was shot during a demonstration by a member of the Israeli army in Beita, the town of about 12,000 people near Nablus, which has been the target of deadly Israeli attacks for decades, both by the military and by settlers. In 1988, during the First Intifada, the then Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered the army to "break the bones" of Palestinian protesters. Twenty men from Beita and the vicinity said to have been involved in stone throwing were assembled, bound, and actually had their bones broken by soldiers. They were then abandoned at night in a muddy field.
A couple months later, a group of Israeli settlers entered Beita in a demonstration of strength "to show them that we are the masters of the country." The group was led by two heavily armed settlers with criminal records of attacks on Palestinians. In the ensuing melee, two Palestinians were shot by one of the armed criminals and with several left wounded. Also killed by the settler's M-16 was an Israeli girl, though the Palestinians were initially blamed. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir attended her funeral where cries of "the village of Beita must be wiped off the face of the earth" were raised.
In the aftermath, a Palestinian boy was killed, hundreds of the town's men were forced to stand all night handcuffed, blindfolded and physically attacked, six were deported, and 16 villagers were sentenced to stiff prison terms for "stone throwing." The IDF then demolished more than 30 homes and bulldozed Beita's almond groves.
In 2013, settlers established on Beitar land, on a hill overlooking the town, the illegal "outpost" of Evyatar, intended to isolate Beitar from its surrounding lands and villages.
In May 2021, during the Unity Intifada, residents of Beitar and the area began protests over the continued presence of the outpost and especially the government's construction of infrastructure for it: roads, water lines and electricity. Over the following months, the IDF killed seven Beitar protesters, injured more than a thousand and destroyed $100,000 worth of vegetables and other produce.
In April 2023, more than 15,000 settlers, accompanied by 1000 soldiers, marched to the Evyatar outpost to demand the government make it a legal settlement. They were led by Betzalel Smotrich, a violent settler who was now the minister in Netanyahu's government responsible for the Civil Administration (the military government), and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of Internal Security (the police).
Since the protests at Beitar began in 2021, ten Palestinians have been killed and some 6,800 injured in defense of their land. Now we add to that tragic toll the American – Turkish activist Ayşenur Eygi. May her memory be blessed. She died much too young but for a noble cause that gives her life and death moral and political significance for all of us fighting against Zionist colonization and for Palestinian rights.