--- title: I'm an American Activist. Israeli Forces Shot Me description: The Sept. 6 killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi haunts me because a bullet tore through my leg at the same weekly demonstration a month earlier. canonical: https://time.com/7020159/daniel-santiago-shot-west-bank-israel-aysenur-ezgi-eygi/ author: Daniel Santiago article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-09-13T10:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:46:45.787Z article:section: Ideas og:title: I'm an American Activist. Israeli Forces Shot Me og:description: The Sept. 6 killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi haunts me because a bullet tore through my leg at the same weekly demonstration a month earlier. og:url: https://time.com/7020159/daniel-santiago-shot-west-bank-israel-aysenur-ezgi-eygi/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc09012dca03920c/698a5ace186892014c6c876d/west-bank-protest-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Palestinians-Weekly-Protests-Against-Israeli-Settlements-August og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: I'm an American Activist. Israeli Forces Shot Me twitter:description: The Sept. 6 killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi haunts me because a bullet tore through my leg at the same weekly demonstration a month earlier. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdc09012dca03920c/698a5ace186892014c6c876d/west-bank-protest-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # I’m an American Activist. Israeli Forces Shot Me at a Peaceful Protest in the West Bank > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=a27e0594-e9f8-4bb4-8a82-26e9749d96d0&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: I’m an American Activist. Israeli Forces Shot Me at a Peaceful Protest in the West Bank [Watch (HLS stream): I’m an American Activist. Israeli Forces Shot Me at a Peaceful Protest in the West Bank](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W0FjLDSf.m3u8) (4:13)  _Published 2024-09-13. On Friday, Aug. 9, American activist Daniel Santiago was shot by an Israeli soldier during a peaceful demonstration in the West Bank village of Beita._ by [Daniel Santiago](https://time.com/author/daniel-santiago/) ## Daniel Santiago Sep 13, 2024 10:00 AM UTC On Friday, Aug. 9, American activist Daniel Santiago was shot by an Israeli soldier during a peaceful demonstration in the West Bank village of Beita. by [Daniel Santiago](https://time.com/author/daniel-santiago/) ## Daniel Santiago Sep 13, 2024 10:00 AM UTC On Friday, Aug. 9, I was shot by an Israeli soldier during a peaceful demonstration in the West Bank village of Beita. The weekly demonstrations there began in May 2021 in response to the establishment of a newly-formed settlement called Evyatar, which [the Israeli government has since legalized](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-10/ty-article/.premium/israel-moves-to-legalize-illegal-outpost-declares-evyatar-is-built-on-state-owned-land/00000190-9970-d3c0-a7b0-f97067cf0000), as they accelerate the [annexation of Palestinian land](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/15/israel-west-bank-settlements-palestinians/). The Israeli army fired tear gas and live rounds, forcing a few dozen of us protesters to flee and seek shelter in a nearby olive grove. At first, I didn’t realize I had been shot. I thought I had been hit by a tear gas canister and was even able to keep running for a few moments. It was when I looked down and saw the raw mass of pulsing flesh that I understood a bullet had torn through my leg. The Palestinians around me rushed me to a nearby pickup truck that waited on a dirt road about half a mile away, and then to an ambulance. En routeto the Rafidia hospital in Nablus, we were stopped three times by Israeli army vehicles and checkpoints, and arrived at the hospital about an hour later. Palestinians are nowhere near as lucky. In August 2023, for example, an ambulance carrying an unconscious 40-year-old stroke victim was [denied entry in East Jerusalem, resulting in his death](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/twilight-zone/2023-08-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/a-palestinian-ambulance-was-stopped-at-an-east-jerusalem-checkpoint-the-patient-died/00000189-c2bf-d821-afdd-dbbfbfdd0000). In June this year, the Israeli military even strapped an injured Palestinian man [to the front of an Israeli military vehicle](https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/23/middleeast/west-bank-jenin-israeli-military-palestinian-man-jeep-intl-hnk/index.html). The bullet that struck me did not hit anything vital. But just down the hall, a 13-year-old boy named Marwan was recovering from a gunshot wound by Israeli fire that same day. The bullet sliced into his bone as he was playing soccer with his friends. When I hobbled down the hall to visit him, his family told me that his injury was nothing compared to what was happening to people in Gaza. [The next day](https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/147885), four people, including children, from Beit Furik, east of Nablus, were admitted to the same hospital I was in. Three had been shot in the leg, and one in the arm. That day [nearly 100 people were killed in Gaza](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/10/middleeast/israeli-school-strike-gaza-intl-hnk/index.html) when a school and mosque were hit by an Israeli airstrike during morning prayers.  Activist Daniel Santiago receives treatment at Rafidia Hospital on Aug. 9, 2024. Jaafar Ashtiyeh—AFP/Getty Images I came to the West Bank with [Defend Palestine](https://www.defendpalestine.org/) to provide nonviolent civil protection—a well-known [form of peacekeeping](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/protection-through-presence-un-peacekeeping-and-the-costs-of-targeting-civilians/050CE5EC7C4D8049FD3973241EC0F97D)—for Palestinian farmers and families. Such efforts are made necessary by rapidly-escalating settler and military violence; violence that only ever seems to garner condemnation and individualized sanctions by the Biden-Harris administration, and never a rethink of the U.S.-Israel security relationship. **Read More:** [_It’s Time to Rethink the U.S.-Israel ‘Special Relationship’_](https://time.com/7001922/netanyahu-biden-harris-us-israel-special-relationship/) The Israeli army called my shooting an “[accident](https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-us-activist-shot-by-troops-accidentally-at-west-bank-anti-settlement-rally/),” claiming the soldiers fired live rounds into the air. (I had previously used an alias, Amado Sison, but have decided to go public with my real name.) The truth is they fired straight at me. The bullet entered through the back of my thigh and out the front. It’s a trajectory that would be impossible for a bullet falling from the sky. The State Department has said they are [“aware of the incident,”](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-shoot-us-citizen-occupied-west-bank) and the U.S. Embassy has offered me accompaniment to file a report with the Israeli police. But I declined the offer because I believe such reporting whitewashes the systemic impunity Israel wields. The data [bears this out](https://www.yesh-din.org/en/law-enforcement-against-israeli-soldiers-suspected-of-harming-palestinians-and-their-property-summary-of-figures-for-2017-2021/). Earlier this year, President Joe Biden said that [“](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-shoot-us-citizen-occupied-west-bank)[if you harm an American, we will respond](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/02/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-u-s-military-operation-in-the-middle-east/).[”](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-shoot-us-citizen-occupied-west-bank) Yet the Biden Administration has not even condemned my attack. The same was true when two weeks prior [Americans were bludgeoned by Israeli settlers](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-teen-fatally-shot-west-bank/). And when a [Palestinian American teen was shot](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-teen-fatally-shot-west-bank/) and killed in the West Bank in January. And when a [Palestinian American boy was shot and falsely imprisoned](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/13-year-old-palestinian-american-was-shot-israeli-soldiers-detained-fa-rcna130797) by Israeli forces last December. A week ago, meters from where I was shot, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old American activist, was [killed](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/10/middleeast/israel-military-american-activist-west-bank-intl/index.html) at the same weekly protest in Beita. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called her killing “unprovoked and unjustified” after the Israeli military said she was “highly likely” hit by IDF stray fire. Biden and Harris both faced criticism in the days after her death for [failing to call Eygi’s family](https://www.cair.com/press%5Freleases/cair-calls-bidens-failure-to-call-family-of-american-killed-by-israel-disturbing-and-disappointing/), who say they are “deeply offended by the suggestion” that her killing was “unintentional.” They have called for an independent U.S. investigation. None have been announced. Had the Biden Administration taken my shooting seriously, Ayşenur might still be with us today.  A funeral procession for Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in Nablus on Sept. 9, 2024. Nasser Ishtayeh—SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images The U.S. enables such needless violence with its blank-check support for Israel and steady supply of arms. On the same day I was shot, for example, the State Department [cleared military aid](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-clears-aid-israeli-unit-accused-mistreating-palestinians-west-bank-2024-08-09/) for Netzah Yehuda, an ultra-Orthodox battalion accused of gross human rights violations against Palestinians. The U.S. and other countries have imposed sanctions on around a dozen extremist settlers and a handful of groups but they have [had minimal impact](https://apnews.com/article/us-sanctions-israeli-settlers-west-bank-palestinians-354f8b0a44b70c25bf013614b4775900). For these reasons, I echo activists and most Americans in demanding our government do better. It is not radical to ask that we follow the rule of law. The [Leahy Laws](https://www.justsecurity.org/96522/israel-leahy-law/) and the [Foreign Assistance Act](https://civiliansinconflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/FACT-SHEET-620I-Brief-1.pdf) very [clearly prohibit](https://www.justsecurity.org/90010/a-law-and-policy-guide-to-us-arms-transfers-to-israel/) the provision of military weapons and assistance to countries that have committed human rights violations, as does Biden’s own [National Security Memoranda](https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/flawed-nsm-20-report-on-israel-undercuts-administrations-own-efforts-alongside-us-law-interests-and-values/). It is time that the U.S.—which provides billions in arms to Israel each year—imposes an arms embargo until Tel Aviv complies fully with the International Court of Justice’s landmark July ruling that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal. I still have hope for a world where people like me do not have to put ourselves in harm’s way to stand against the brutalization of Palestinians, so that they can live with freedom and dignity in the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond. ## Transcript [00:18] So since the escalation of October 7, [00:23] it was hard for me to teach. [00:25] I'm a teacher in Jeras City, [00:27] and it was hard for me to concentrate on just [00:30] teaching and thinking everything is normal when there's a genocide happening. [00:36] I had a afea, I lost it. Someone took it. [00:40] So I bought a new one, and then there was a postcard that came with it, [00:44] a handwritten note that said, [00:46] thank you for your solidarity and your support, [00:48] and an invitation to visit. [00:49] That's when I asked my friends part of multiple movements, [00:54] how to, you know, go to Palestine and take part in solidarity. [00:59] I found out about Faza International volunteer group, that's non violent. [01:04] That's pretty much documenting and reporting [01:07] on any things that happened with the Israeli Army, [01:11] as well as settlers, [01:13] any violence to the Palestinians. [01:15] So we are a buffer. And then I took the orientation, and I decided to go. [01:21] So on the day, as a member of Faza, [01:27] we go to the weekly demonstrations in Beta. Every Friday. [01:32] So when we got there. [01:34] We already saw a lot of the Israeli army posted up on the outpost, around three of them. [01:41] But it seemed like there was escalation happening a lot faster. [01:46] So we did the uma prayer without incident, [01:50] but that was, like, five, 10 minutes. [01:52] And then after that, tear gas was shot at us and live rounds. [01:57] This was the first time that someone got shot at the demonstration. [02:00] We hit behind a concrete wall. [02:03] And then we were at the same street as where the Israeli Army was. [02:08] When we saw that the Israeli Army was coming down to the trucks, [02:13] we were we were a little scared. [02:18] We saw Palestinians run into Oliive Grove. So we followed. [02:23] That is when the Israeli Army shot at us, [02:27] tear gas, as well as the Lab rounds. [02:29] And one of those lab rounds went into my right. [02:32] And that is when the Palestinians carried me to safety in a pickup truck. [02:40] And even going to the hospital, [02:42] we were stopped three times by the Israeli Army, [02:46] two checkpoints, and one time they [02:49] blocked us with the army trucks as well as the hospital. [02:53] When I was in the hospital, [02:55] there was a 13-year-old boy down the hall that I met. [02:58] They shot him in the legs for playing soccer. [03:01] The next day when I was in the hospital, [03:04] there were four boys that were shot, [03:08] three in the leg, one in the shoulder. [03:13] And without us being there as a buffer, [03:16] they can move with impunity. [03:18] Also while I was in the hospital, [03:21] the US sent arms to Israel, [03:24] and that's when the school got bombed, [03:28] where over 100 Palestinians were killed. [03:30] The US embassy reached out. [03:32] I gave them a statement. [03:34] I will be giving them consent to report. But that was it. [03:41] No state officials, no politicians, [03:44] reach out to me, just the embassy when they found out. [03:48] But I was very hesitant too because they [03:52] always say that Israel will investigate their own crimes, and nothing happens. [03:55] I hope to come back to Palestine again with Faza or ISM, [04:01] to be with the Palestinians again, [04:03] because they were the ones that saved my life, [04:05] and I owe a debt to them. [04:07] And I also just love the love and care that they showed me when I was there. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7020159/daniel-santiago-shot-west-bank-israel-aysenur-ezgi-eygi/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7020159/daniel-santiago-shot-west-bank-israel-aysenur-ezgi-eygi/"},"headline":"I’m an American Activist. 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