Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s parents want her to be buried in Didim, Turkey, where the young Turkish-American woman was born.
The 26-year-old Palestinian activist was shot dead by Israeli troops last Friday while protesting against illegal Israeli settlements in Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Turkish authorities have been working for days to ensure the repatriation of Aysenur’s body for a burial scheduled for Friday.
Aysenur, a recent graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, was protesting an Israeli settlement near Evyatar when she was shot in the head.
Mourning has taken over the young activist and a large funeral procession was held in her honour in Nablus on Tuesday.
Senior members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) escorted his body, draped in a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh, through the city before it was transported by a Palestinian ambulance.
“Old soul”
Sam Chesneau, co-founder and director of the Seattle-based American-Muslim organization Wasat, of which Aysenur was a member, described her as “an old soul, wise beyond her years, a truly caring person and a deep thinker” who had “a wonderful sense of humor.”
“The world mourns her because we all recognize in her the best of ourselves,” Chesneau said.
“It reminds us to make peace with death and, instead, to fear a life of apathy, of choosing security over our beliefs and our humanity.”
From Aysenur’s family home in Didum, her aunt Gulay Yeniceoglu told local media that the young activist was “a very compassionate person and could not turn a blind eye to injustice.”
Aysenur was killed during a peaceful protest against the illegal settlement of Eyvatar, established on Palestinian land in the West Bank in 2013.
“She was smiling”
Witnesses to Aysenur’s murder also contradicted Israeli claims that her death was accidental.
Among them was Italian activist “Mariam” who was traveling with Aysenur in the ambulance as she was transferred to Beita and then to Nablus, where she was pronounced dead.
Mariam said: “We were clearly visible to the army, there was nothing happening next to us… it was a deadly shot.”
Having just met Aysenur upon their arrival in Palestine, Mariam said of her: “She was a kind person… she was ready to be here, on the ground, to support the Palestinian struggle. She was smiling, she was praying when we were in the garden.”
A friend of Aysenur, who arrived in the occupied West Bank for the first time three days before the killing, told the website +972 that the protest in Beita was the first for her and Aysenur.
“We were all new,” said the friend, who gave her name as EN. “She was aware of the risks; she had a clearer idea than I did of the situation in different parts of the West Bank… from talking to people and doing research and knowing people who had experienced tragedies.”
“But it’s always hard to understand if you haven’t spent a lot of time here,” EN continued.
“How do you know that you’re going to get shot in the head within the first or second hour of getting on the field? She wasn’t in the front line, she was in the back, and they still murdered her.”
Israel issued a brief statement on Tuesday saying it had investigated and that Aysenur was “most likely hit indirectly and unintentionally” by its forces in the area.
She added that the bullet that hit Aysenur in the head was “not aimed at her, but at the main instigator of the riot” and that the army felt “deep regret” over Aysenur’s death.
The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), where Aysenur was a volunteer, said the protest was peaceful.
Aysenur’s murder has been compared to that of Rachel Corrie, another American citizen and ISM volunteer, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer while protesting in Rafah, Gaza, in 2003.
More than a decade later, an Israeli civilian judge ruled in favor of the military in a case brought by Corrie’s family, declaring her death an accident.
“They shot to kill”
Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, who was present at the protest and was one of the first to reach Aysenur after it was shot, said the group retreated from their protest site atop Mount Sabih hill and Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at them.
The militants remained in the built-up area of Beita for about 30 minutes, during which time soldiers took control of the roof of a house on top of the hill.
The house belonged to Munir Khudair’s daughter, who was on the roof that Friday. He told Tel Aviv Tribune: “Of course, the army surrounds this house every Friday and goes up to the roof to use it to shoot at the protesters. The army came… and we went down.”
At the time the two shots rang out, there was no confrontation or friction, Munir said. “I think it was a sniper who fired,” he said, adding: “We heard shouts from the group saying, ‘Wounded! Wounded!’”
About 90 minutes after the shooting, the soldiers left Munir’s daughter’s house.
Pollak said he was certain the shots were live ammunition. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years, I know the difference between the sound of rubber bullets, tear gas and live ammunition.
“One of them hit a metal object and then the thigh of a young man from the village, then another shot was heard.”
Pollak was called to the spot where Aysenur had fallen, and he held his hand – still bloody as he spoke just after the attack – to the back of her head to try to stop the bleeding.
“There is no justification for this shooting,” he said emphatically. “They shot to kill… 17 people have been killed in protests in Beita by the Israeli army since 2021.”
In response to Israel’s admission of partial responsibility for Aysenur’s death, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blasted the killing as “unprovoked and unjustified” and called for “fundamental changes” in the way Israel operates in the West Bank.
However, US President Joe Biden later appeared to ignore Blinken’s comments, backing Israel’s characterization of the Aysenur killing as an “accident.”
The day after Aysenur’s murder, her family issued a statement via ISM, calling for an independent US investigation into her death, which does not involve the Israeli military, in order to “ensure full accountability for the perpetrators.”
UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency that they were calling for an “independent international investigation into violations committed in the Palestinian territory,” without elaborating.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to take “all legal measures” to ensure that his blood “was not shed in vain” – actions including possible recourse to the International Court of Justice, which is already investigating Israel on charges of potential genocide.
