The Biden administration has faced criticism for its tepid response to the killing of Turkish-American citizen Ayse Nur Izgi Ece by Israeli occupation forces, after it refrained from blaming Israel and described the targeted killing as “tragic.”

Eyewitnesses told multiple media outlets that Aisha Nour was among a group of activists taking part in a demonstration against the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian town of Beita on Friday when she was shot in the head.

According to eyewitness accounts in the US media, the protesters began to retreat shortly before Aisha Noor was killed, when soldiers fired tear gas into the crowd.

The eyewitness said two live rounds were fired at the group, one of which hit Ezgi Ece in the head.

“When she was shot, she was standing there and doing absolutely nothing with another woman – it was a deliberate shot because they shot from a very, very far distance,” an eyewitness told Middle East Eye (who asked to remain anonymous).

"It was a deliberate shot to the head," he added.

Following Aisha Noor's assassination, the US State Department said it would gather information about the circumstances of her death and then make further comments at a later time.

"We are sorry for this tragic loss. Right now, the most important thing to do is gather the facts," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference during his visit to the Dominican Republic.

“Any actions we take will be driven by the facts. So first and foremost, let’s find out exactly what happened.”

The State Department's immediate response angered Palestinian Americans, who accused the White House of treating the deaths of Israeli Americans with far greater concern than other Americans killed by Israel.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a Palestinian-American, protested State Department spokesman Matthew Miller’s statement, saying, “We are aware of the tragic death of American citizen Aysinur Ege today in the West Bank. Our deepest condolences go out to her family and loved ones. We are urgently working to gather more information about the circumstances of her death,” without mentioning who killed her. “How did she die, Matthew? Was it magic? Who or what killed Aysinur?” she tweeted on X (formerly Twitter).

Meanwhile, American-Palestinian political analyst Omar Badar said on the same platform that killing Israel would likely be met with few consequences from the United States.

“We are about to have another show for those who can kill Americans with impunity,” Badar said sadly.

In turn, the family of American citizen Aisha Noor, who was killed by Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank on Friday, called on President Biden to order an investigation into the shooting instead of relying on Israel to investigate itself.

“Aysenur (Aisha Noor), a US citizen, was peacefully standing up for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video footage shows came from an Israeli military shooter,” the Igi family said in a statement.

It is noteworthy that the statements so far from the administration are in stark contrast to the statements that followed the Israeli army's discovery of the body of Hersh Goldberg Polin, the American-Israeli whose body was found with the bodies of five other hostages in Gaza.

The incident prompted a direct statement from US President Joe Biden, who said he was "devastated and angry" over the death.

“It is tragic and reprehensible,” Biden said. “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay a price for these crimes. We will continue to work around the clock to reach an agreement to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”

Aisha Noor Iji was the second American citizen to be shot by Israeli forces in Beita in the past few weeks.

Last month, Middle East Eye reported that the Israeli army shot American citizen Amadou Sison in the leg as he was withdrawing from an area where Israeli soldiers were gathering during the same demonstration that Aisha Noor attended on Friday.

After the shooting and his return to the United States, Sison said neither the White House nor any of his state lawmakers had contacted him.

In recent years, several Palestinian Americans have died at the hands of the Israeli military or been killed by Israeli occupation soldiers. Each killing has drawn similar responses from the Biden administration, which has called for an investigation but made no apparent attempt to seek justice for those killed.

In 2022, Israeli forces shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a prominent Al Jazeera journalist and American citizen, during a military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

The killing has drawn widespread international condemnation, with Abu Akleh's family, along with a group of US senators, calling on the Biden administration to launch an independent investigation into the matter.

However, on July 4, 2022, the State Department announced its conclusions on the killing, saying that while it was likely Israeli fire killed Abu Akleh, the United States “has found no reason to believe this was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances.”

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) filed a complaint on Thursday against the US State Department in an attempt to force it to release documents related to allegations of human rights abuses by the Israeli military — dating back to the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.

Dawn said she filed the complaint in federal court in the District of Columbia to make the records public because of the department's failure to release the documents.

Lawsuits may be filed in federal court to release documents that have not been released through FOIA requests.