Israeli military says it likely killed American in West Bank

The Israeli military said Tuesday that it was "highly likely" its forces killed an American woman during a protest in the occupied West Bank last week. The United States said the shooting was "unprovoked and unjustified" and called for "fundamental changes" to Israel's conduct, a rare direct rebuke of its close ally.

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 at the time.

Washington had urged Israel to investigate the circumstances around Eygi's death and to ensure the findings were "thorough and transparent." The incident unfolded as Israeli forces carried out a deadly dayslong military operation in other parts of the West Bank that it said targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

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The Israel Defense Forces said in a brief statement published Tuesday that an initial inquiry found it was "highly likely" that Eygi was "hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire, which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator" of the protest."

The IDF had previously said it had responded with fire toward a "main instigator" who was alleged to have been throwing rocks.

The IDF described the demonstration as a "violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks toward security forces at the Beita Junction," in its statement Tuesday.

Eygi's family said she was peacefully demonstrating when she was killed and that video showed the bullet appeared to come from an Israeli military shooter.

They had separately called for an independent U.S.-ordered investigation and said an Israeli investigation