New video, witnesses challenge Israel’s account of U.S. activist’s killing - Washingtonpost

A Washington Post investigation has found that Eygi was shot more than a half-hour after the height of confrontations in Beita, and some 20 minutes after protesters had moved down the main road — more than 200 yards away from Israeli forces. A Palestinian teenager, who witnesses say was standing about 20 yards from Eygi, was wounded by Israeli fire; the IDF would not say if he was a target.

A photograph taken at 1:21 p.m. shows at least four Israeli soldiers at the top of the hill. Video and photos from the next several minutes show soldiers taking up positions on higher ground — including on the rooftop of Beita resident Ali Maali’s home, and near a military vehicle.

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A video filmed at 1:22 p.m. shows the road next to the olive grove. A shot rings out.

“They’re shooting with regular guns!” an activist says off-camera in Japanese. Steven Beck, an audio forensic expert who consulted for the FBI and reviewed the footage for The Post, said the pop heard on the video was consistent with a gunshot — a finding corroborated by a second audio expert, Rob Maher.

A video filmed at 1:29 p.m. shows people loitering at the bottom of the hill; a man stands with his hands on his hips.

“They haven’t shot any more live rounds, no more tear gas, yet,” Chabbott, the American volunteer, says in another video filmed around the same time. For nearly 20 minutes after that, the scene remained relatively calm, Palestinians and volunteers said.

“Gunshot!” an unseen woman can be heard screaming in the background. She pleads for an ambulance. In the olive grove, Helen saw Eygi drop facedown to the ground beside her. The older woman rolled her over. Blood was pouring from the left side of Eygi’s head, she said, and she was unresponsive.

But one of the soldiers on the roof was “training his gun in our direction,” recalled Pollak, who was standing next to a dumpster that had been moved into the middle of the road at the bottom of the hill. He and other activists said he was the closest person to Israeli troops at the time, just over 200 yards away; Eygi was around 30 yards farther.

The IDF’s initial inquiry into Eygi’s death “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.”

Yet the shots fired toward the activists, including the one that claimed Eygi’s life, came some 20 minutes after they had retreated to the bottom of the hill — more than two football fields away from the nearest Israeli soldiers.