Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was passionate about the Middle East

Israeli troops shot and killed a Turkish-American woman who had been taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, Palestinian and Turkish officials said.

The White House said it was deeply disturbed by the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and called on Israel to investigate. Turkey's foreign ministry said she was shot in the head, and blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for her death.

Palestinian officials described her as a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who held U.S. and Turkish citizenship.

Eygi had recently graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle, the school's president, Ana Mari Cauce, said in a statement describing the news of her death as "awful" and saying Eygi had a "positive influence" on other students.

She studied psychology and Middle Eastern languages and cultures at the university, her family said in a statement late on Friday that was shared by the pro-Palestinian organization Institute of Middle East Understanding.

Israel's military said its troops had fired toward a male "main instigator" who posed a threat by hurling rocks at soldiers.

The military was looking into reports that a female foreign national "was killed as a result of shots fired in the area. The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review."

There was no immediate comment on the incident from Netanyahu's office.

Eygi's family described her as a "fiercely passionate human rights activist" who had recently participated in college campus protests against U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza.

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan condemned Eygi's death, saying in a post on social media that Turkey "will continue to work in every platform to halt Israel's policy of occupation and genocide".

Israel denies its actions in Palestinian territories amount to genocide.