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Juliette Majid, what do you remember?
Juliette Majid, Friend of Aysenur Eygi: Yes, so I met Aysenur Eygi at the University of Washington. We both graduated this past June, she with a bachelor's in psychology and a minor in Middle Eastern cultures and languages.
She was an incredibly hard worker. She was a very staunch activist. She was a community and a campus organizer spanning many different solidarity movements and programs across the Seattle area. It's a profound loss that we are feeling in our community here in Seattle.
And also it's a profound loss for the American public in general to lose such a staunch American human rights activist.
Kelsie Nabass, why did she travel to the occupied West Bank?
As you just heard, Juliette said she was a staunch activist, and she knew that anything that she could have possibly done here on the ground between the U.W. encampment camp met and going to protests and advocating for the liberation of the Palestinian people, she knew that going and being on the ground and observing the suffering and observing and witnessing what the Palestinian people were facing would be good for her self-conscience and also just because she felt comfortable going and being a part of that community.
Juliette Majid, you were talking to her until the end. What did you understand and what do you understand today about what happened?
I talked to Aysenur on Monday before she arrived in the West Bank. And I just know that she was so honored to be able to be in the West Bank in a land where she understood the complex and horrible conditions that the Palestinians in the West Bank face at the hands of the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlements.
And she was so honored to be able to experience and then come back and share these stories and help create a stronger movement here in the United States.
Kelsie Nabass, as you know, the Israeli military says that it is not defending illegal settlements and is in fact trying to crack down on what they call illegal outposts. And as you have seen, the Israeli military has said that she was not the target of this bullet, that the — what they called "the instigator" of the riot was the actual target and it was a ricochet. What's your response to that Israeli military statement?
I think what's important here today is that anyone should have the right to peacefully protest and peacefully observe a demonstration from an illegal settlement.
I don't think that there was any right to have any live ammunition at that type of — at that type of place. As we know, they were peacefully having their Friday prayer and peacefully demonstrating against the occupation of farmland in the region.
And now they're saying that it was an accident, which is completely deplorable for my best friend. Juliette Majid, what is your message? What is the family's message as well to the Biden administration today?Yes, so I — for me personally, I think that the Biden administration's statement today was incredibly shameful.
To release comment about and support the evidence that the Israeli military gave without conducting an independent U.S. investigation into the killing of an American citizen is very shameful. And I don't accept that. I don't accept that we will accept the Israeli military's evidence or proof.
What I want to see, what the family wants to see is this independent us investigation. Aysenur was an American citizen. She was an incredible person and she deserves justice. Her family deserves justice. And they won't — they won't get that without an investigation and without the evidence that they are requiring.
