Like me, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi attended West Seattle High School.

In September 2024, days before leaving to do advocacy work in the West Bank, she celebrated her birthday at Alki Beach — a local favorite spot for Seattleites. Not long after, Eygi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers while observing a weekly protest against Israel’s illegal settlements.

Congress is now considering legislation that would bring the U.S. and Israeli militaries closer than ever before. This could be especially dangerous for Palestinians and others in the region, who have been on the receiving end of Israel’s violent expansionism.

Israeli forces have killed over 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, with over 1,200 deaths occurring since the U.S.-backed ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025. In Lebanon, Israeli attacks have killed over 4,300 people, with numbers climbing daily.

The case of U.S. citizen Eygi — and other Americans killed by Israeli forces — shows that if Congress passes this new legislation, they could also be putting U.S. citizens at risk.

Buried inside the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is Section 219, a provision that would dramatically expand defense technology cooperation between the United States and Israel. The idea is controversial — U.S. support for Israel faces growing scrutiny in the wake of the country’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza, which has been classified by rights groups and international authorities as a genocide.

Section 219 would expand joint U.S.-Israeli development of advanced military technologies, which includes artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and autonomous weapons systems. Unlike traditional military aid, which Congress reviews and appropriates each year, the proposal would create an “executive agent” to embed Israeli technology and defense firms into the Pentagon — from research and development to testing and manufacturing processes.

The Quincy Institute on Responsible Statecraft said that Section 219 would make the U.S. military more intertwined with Israel’s than with any other ally while making the relationship less transparent and harder for Congress to oversee or unwind in the future.

“Codifying the integration of our military technology and supply chains with those of any other country is dangerous,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, one of seven Republicans to break party lines and vote against the NDAA. Massie had introduced an earlier amendment to remove Section 219 from the NDAA, but House leadership did not allow it to receive a vote.

Sen. Bernie Sanders criticized the proposal as an attempt to give Israel “more military integration than any NATO ally,” despite declining support for unconditional U.S. backing for Israel.

Those concerns from Congress come as public opinion is shifting sharply. Pew Research Center data show increasingly unfavorable public opinion toward Israel in the United States, and growing opposition to U.S. military support for the country. Other polling has found that only 16 percent of Americans support providing military aid to Israel without additional restrictions. Taken together, the numbers reveal a particular disconnect between U.S. foreign policy and public consensus.

Crucially, Section 219 may also pave the way for more violence against the very constituents that lawmakers are elected to represent. Since 2003, Israeli forces have killed at least 14 U.S. citizens with no accountability.

Reading about Eygi’s death in the West Seattle Blog brought U.S. implication in Israeli violence home for me in a new way. The coverage was filled with neighbors remembering someone they had taught, laughed with, and watched grow up. “I taught Ezgi and her sister at Madison [Middle School] years ago and she was a lovely student and person,” wrote one commenter on the blog post. “RIP and I hope her family finds comfort in a horrible situation by family and friends being present for them.”

Following Eygi’s death, hundreds gathered on Alki Beach to mourn her death, holding candles on the same shore where she had celebrated life.

Eygi’s killing was not an isolated tragedy. American citizens killed by Israeli forces in Palestine include peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer while protesting home demolitions in Rafah; Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the head while reporting in the West Bank despite wearing marked press gear; and humanitarian aid worker Jacob Flickinger, who was killed in an Israeli strike while delivering food with World Central Kitchen. Other Palestinian Americans — including teenager Omar Mohammad Rabee and 17-year-old Tawfiq Ajaq — were also killed in the occupied West Bank within recent years.

Their ages, professions, and politics differed, but what united these American citizens was the absence of any accountability after their deaths.

The families have spent years demanding answers. In a 2003 statement, the parents of Rachel Corrie condemned the continued violence against Palestinians, calling for shared humanity. “We ask that military aid to Israel be commensurate with its efforts to end its occupation of the Palestinian Territories and to adhere to the rules of international law,” they wrote.

After Eygi was killed more than two decades later, they returned to a familiar demand for justice, writing: “Aysenur and her family deserve better than White House and Department of State platitudes and calls for Israeli investigations that never result in truth, action, or enforcement of U.S. law. We are demanding more. The time for accountability is now.”

Flickinger’s parents have likewise called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. Human rights organizations and grieving families have repeatedly pressed for investigations and accountability for these deaths of American citizens abroad. Yet years later, no one has been held criminally accountable, and successive administrations have continued providing Israel with military assistance as families at home grieve without justice.

This July, the House narrowly passed the National Defense Authorization Act, including Section 219, by a vote of 216–212. But the proposal has not yet become law. The Senate must still pass its own version of the NDAA before lawmakers reconcile the two bills, leaving Congress with another opportunity to decide whether deeper military integration with Israel is truly in the national interest.

Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi would have celebrated her 28th birthday on July 28. She should have had the chance to build the life ahead of her. Instead, she became one more American killed by Israeli forces without meaningful accountability. If Congress chooses to further institutionalize the U.S.-Israel military relationship without demanding accountability, it risks binding the United States even more closely to a partnership in which future abuses — including those against American citizens — may be met with the same impunity.

Israel has demonstrated time and time again that it will use U.S. weapons to violate international law — which itself is a violation of U.S. law. Instead of entertaining this proposal to deepen partnership with Israel, Congress must confront Israeli impunity — from the killings of American citizens to the devastating toll of its genocide on Palestinian civilians. No security partnership should place itself beyond the reach of the law.