Aysenur Ezgi Eygi‘s title has unfold all over the world within the month since an Israeli soldier shot the Turkish American activist within the head throughout a protest in opposition to unlawful settlements within the occupied West Financial institution.
But whereas Eygi’s killing made worldwide headlines and sparked global condemnation, the killing of a 13-year-old Palestinian lady named Bana Laboom – on the identical day, additionally close to the town of Nablus – went largely unnoticed.
The disparity in consideration paid to Israeli killings of Palestinians and foreigners shouldn’t be misplaced on Huwaida Arraf, an American Palestinian activist and co-founder of the Worldwide Solidarity Motion (ISM), the group with which Eygi travelled to Palestine.
In reality, it’s a double customary that teams such because the ISM have sought to make use of for years.
Whereas more and more conscious that their international passports provide solely a measure of safety and no assure of security, worldwide activists search to leverage their standing to reveal and produce higher scrutiny to Israeli violence and help Palestinians in resisting the occupation.
“It was at all times a battle, how a lot to play into and utilise the very racist Israeli system that locations totally different values on totally different lives,” Arraf instructed Al Jazeera. “You recognize that they don’t actually worth Palestinian, Arab, Muslim lives.”
Historical past of solidarity
Eygi was one in all greater than a dozen international activists killed by Israel within the final 20 years.
Just like the tens of hundreds of Palestinians additionally killed over the identical interval, there was little consequence for the troopers who killed them.
The Israeli military mentioned after an preliminary probe that Eygi was shot “unintentionally” and that it was launching an additional investigation.
Turkey mentioned it plans to probe the killing, however the USA has rejected requires an unbiased, US-led probe, deferring as a substitute to the Israeli one.
Israeli forces have killed several US citizens in recent times, however US President Joe Biden’s administration has persistently rejected requires unbiased investigations.
“We concern that if this sample of impunity doesn’t finish with Ms Eygi, it can solely proceed to escalate,” two legislators from Washington state, the place Eygi lived, wrote to the administration.
The household & family members of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi—the WA state resident killed within the West Financial institution—need to know their authorities has completed every thing it may possibly to completely perceive what led to her killing & pursue accountability.
@RepJayapal & I are calling on @POTUS for a full, US-led… pic.twitter.com/kxtS9thuej— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) September 11, 2024
Eygi’s killing has put a highlight on the position of worldwide activists in Palestine and their efforts to reveal the violence of Israel’s occupation.
Worldwide solidarity with Palestine has lasted a long time, with left-wing and anti-colonial actions from all over the world aligning with the Palestinian resistance battle way back to 1948.
Beginning across the starting of the second Intifada within the early 2000s, a distinct kind of worldwide solidarity took maintain within the occupied Palestinian territory.
Overseas nationals started travelling to Palestine in higher numbers particularly to doc the realities of life below Israeli occupation, take part in protests, try and cease dwelling demolitions or accompany Palestinians to their lands in an effort to guard them from Israeli settler and army assaults.
ISM – now one in all a number of comparable teams – largely pioneered the technique, beginning as a free community of worldwide and Israeli activists who had been already in Palestine through the second Intifada.
As Israeli assaults intensified, the group began stationing worldwide activists in Palestinian houses focused by the Israeli army, then notified international embassies and media of their presence.
“We simply put out a press launch noting that there have been internationals on this space the place Israel is firing tanks at civilian houses, as a method to get worldwide embassies concerned,” Arraf defined.
“[W]e centered on the place the Israelis had been finishing up army operations to attempt to put internationals there and in a way increase the stakes on Israel, and get worldwide embassies and governments extra concerned,” she mentioned.
On the time, Arraf famous, Palestinian voices had been a rarity in international media protection of the area, and having internationals on the bottom “supplied a possibility to speak about what was occurring and dispel lots of the stereotypes and the narrative that had been constructed up about Israel being the sufferer”.
ISM quickly began calling for individuals to go to Palestine and become involved. About 50 individuals responded to the primary name for volunteers, Arraf mentioned.
A second name drew about 100 – primarily Europeans and North Individuals, for whom journey to the area was simpler.
The activists tore down army roadblocks and marched on checkpoints. When the Israeli army imposed a curfew on Palestinians, international activists would break the curfew when somebody wanted meals or drugs.
“We’d maintain our passports in entrance of Israeli tanks,” mentioned Arraf. “As a result of Palestinians who broke the curfew had been getting shot.”
The technique appeared efficient for some time, although native communities had been generally suspicious of worldwide activists. Israeli authorities additionally detained, deported and banned a number of of them.
Arraf burdened that activists would observe Palestinians’ lead and solely go the place their presence was requested – the ISM remained a Palestinian-led motion, she mentioned.
That was at occasions troublesome. Arraf recalled the instance of a village that Palestinian residents had fled after a settler assault; a bunch of worldwide activists accompanied the residents again, however then realised they must keep to keep away from future assaults.
“We didn’t need it to be so that you could’t do something with out a global there,” she mentioned.
Activists killed
Then, in March 2003, an Israeli soldier drove a bulldozer over 23-year-old American ISM activist Rachel Corrie, crushing her to demise. Corrie had been in Rafah, trying to cease a house demolition.
Her demise prompted widespread condemnation – however in the end, there have been no consequences for Israel’s relationship with the US, its prime ally.
In April of that very same 12 months, an Israeli soldier in Jenin within the occupied West Financial institution shot one other American ISM volunteer – Brian Avery – within the face, inflicting everlasting accidents. A month later, an Israeli soldier killed Welsh journalist James Miller who was filming a documentary in Gaza.
The subsequent 12 months, Tom Hurndall, a British photographer and volunteer with the ISM in Rafah, was shot within the head whereas making an attempt to defend two kids from Israeli hearth. He died 9 months later.
The killings deeply shook the small group of worldwide activists, however solely strengthened their dedication to remain in Palestine.
“It did trigger us to re-evaluate actually how efficient it was … if now Israel shouldn’t be solely prepared to kill a global, however virtually blame them for their very own demise?” Arraf mentioned.
“However we couldn’t abandon Palestinians. We had been going to proceed offering our solidarity, documenting and taking tales again dwelling. It’s additionally a really human message, individual to individual, for individuals’s morale to actually know that they’re not alone.”
Overseas activists have continued going to Palestine, even after Israeli forces launched a lethal raid on a humanitarian flotilla looking for to interrupt Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza in 2010.
Ten activists had been killed within the assault on the Mavi Marmara; 9 had been Turkish residents and one was Turkish American.
Turkish prosecutors issued arrest warrants in opposition to 4 Israeli army commanders in connection to the raid, however the two nations ultimately settled the case, Israel agreeing to pay compensation to the victims’ households in trade for Turkey dropping its pursuit of the Israeli officers.
After the flotilla incident, Arraf mentioned, organisers instructed those that needed to journey to Palestine that they couldn’t assure their security.
“You continue to had tons of of individuals come, prepared to go, regardless of every thing that Israel is placing in our method,” she mentioned. Even after Ayigi’s killing final month, one in all her college students wrote to Arraf to inform her she deliberate to journey to Palestine.
‘Carry consideration’
Sami Huraini, a Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta within the southern occupied West Financial institution, grew up round worldwide activists.
A bunch of them have lived on a near-permanent foundation for 20 years in his hometown Tuwani, a rural group surrounded by ever-expanding Israeli settlements.
He credit that worldwide presence with bringing scrutiny to Israeli actions in Masafer Yatta, the place dozens of Palestinian communities have been preventing for years to stay on their lands after Israel unilaterally declared a big swath of it a “firing zone” and ordered their expulsion.
“This motion has helped carry consideration to this place and our scenario – the settler violence and army harassment we stay below,” Huraini instructed Al Jazeera. “It’s good to have an outsider testify to the every day actuality that we see and we stay.”
Huraini burdened that settler and army incursions into Masafer Yatta stay frequent – and sometimes violent – regardless of the worldwide activists documenting them.
Nevertheless, when there are fewer foreigners round, as was the case through the COVID-19 pandemic, the scenario for locals is way extra harmful. “If it’s Palestinians alone, then settlers do no matter they need,” he mentioned. “It may be very dangerous.”
The presence of worldwide activists in Masafer Yatta has turn out to be such a staple that farmers and shepherds tending to their land and animals in areas that come below frequent settler assaults at all times take two foreigners with them to movie any encounters and provide a measure of safety, Huraini defined.
When not working alongside Palestinians, he added, international activists “are a part of the group” in Masafer Yatta, mentioned Huraini.
“They’re becoming a member of us at our weddings, they’re becoming a member of us in our unhappy moments, they’re becoming a member of us each second. They aren’t vacationers for in the future. They’re right here with us, they’re dwelling our lives, we’re having breakfast collectively, lunch, harvesting within the discipline.”
Resisting Israeli colonialism
Whereas international activists keep in Palestine for various lengths of time – the ISM recommends a minimal of three weeks for every keep – others, together with a number of Israelis, are there to remain.
Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli activist who was on the demonstration the place Eygi was killed final month, has spent years working with the Palestinian Standard Committees, a grassroots Palestinian motion that organises actions and protests in opposition to the Israeli occupation.
He mentioned international activists do greater than provide safety or bear witness.
“The concept at all times was that folks would come and be a part of the resistance to Israeli colonialism,” he instructed Al Jazeera. “Not as some exterior human defend, however relatively as a pressure inside the motion.
“It’s not about this position of a saviour however relatively how individuals can combine into the battle relatively than … simply being there.”
Whereas an enormous a part of the expertise of worldwide activists was to get a “political schooling” that may make their solidarity work again dwelling simpler, he mentioned, the first function was to take part within the Palestinians’ battle as full members of it.
“It was at all times about taking a political standpoint,” Pollak added. “Aysenur wasn’t right here to witness, she was right here taking sides.”