'Killing of US-Turkish activist unprovoked and unjustified'

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday demanded an overhaul of Israeli military conduct in the occupied West Bank as he decried the fatal shooting of an American protester against settlement expansion, which Israel said was accidental.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead last Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers.

Israel's military said that its initial inquiry found it was highly likely its troops had fired the shot that killed her but that her death was unintentional, and it voiced deep regret.

In his strongest comments to date criticising the security forces of Washington's closest Middle East ally, Blinken described Eygi's killing as "unprovoked and unjustified". He said Washington would insist to the Israeli government that it makes changes to how its forces operate in the West Bank.

"No one should be shot and killed for attending a protest. No one should have to put their life at risk just for freely expressing their views," he told reporters in London.

"In our judgment, Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way that they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement.

"Now we have the second American citizen killed at the hands of Israeli security forces. It's not acceptable," he said.

"We are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional," Eygi's family said in a statement.

Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, an area Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state.

Israel has built a thickening array of settlements there that most countries deem illegal.