marcelafae.bsky.social/ Marcela Faé H. Romeu Pinto

EXCLUSIVE: A comrade of Aysenur Ezgi, the Turkish-American activist shot in the head by Israeli snipers today, recounts the harrowing moments from Ezgi’s peaceful protest up to her death. Ezgi was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group defiantly active in occupied Palestine. A fellow ISM volunteer who stood alongside Ezgi during the protest insists that Israeli snipers targeted her because she dared to expose their war crimes. The ISM has already suffered the loss of several prominent figures, including Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in 2003. At home in the US, 26-year-old Ezgi was a leading activist in the student movement for Palestine at the University of Washington in Seattle. Photos of her in a graduation robe, wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh, spread across social media after her death. The responses from US officials are weak. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made vague promises of an investigation. But Washington has a long history of providing diplomatic cover for Israeli forces, leaving the killers of American activists unpunished.