A U.S. citizen was among those killed in Israel’s flotilla raid Monday, the AP reports. ABC News, quoting the Anatolian news agency, reports that Dogan was shot at "close range, with four bullets in his head and one in his chest."
From the AP:
A 19-year-old man with dual U.S.-Turkish citizenship was among the nine people killed in the Israeli raid on an aid flotilla in the eastern Mediterranean, the State Department said Thursday. That potentially complicates the Obama administration’s attempts to remain neutral in the crisis.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the victim was Furkan Dogan and that U.S. authorities in Turkey had met with Dogan’s father to express condolences and to offer U.S. consular services. She added that two other American citizens had been injured in raid and in a subsequent protest and the U.S. was seeking information about all three from Israel.
"Protecting the welfare of American citizens is a fundamental repsponsibility of our government and one that we take very seriously," she told reporters. "We are in constant contact with the Israeli government attempting to obtain more information about our citizens."
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Dogan, who was born in Troy, N.Y., had died of "gunshot wounds" but he declined to confirm reports that he had been shot multiple times in the head. Crowley said U.S. consular officials had seen Dogan’s body in a morgue in Israel before it was taken to Turkey but had not known he was a dual citizen at the time.
Dogan’s father told Turkey’s state-run Anatolia News Agency that he had identified his son’s body and that he had been shot through the forehead. Still, he said, the family was not sad because they believed Furkan had died with honor.
"I feel my son has been blessed with heaven," he said. "I am hoping to be a father worthy of my son."
Clinton said no decision had yet been made about how to handle Dogan’s death but renewed calls for Israel to "conduct a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation that conforms to international standards and gets to all the facts surrounding this tragic event."
"We are open to different ways to assuring that it is a credible investigation, including urging appropriate international participation," she said.
Furkan Dogan, U.S. Citizen, Killed In Israeli Flotilla Raid
