The coffin of American-Turkish activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, shot dead in the West Bank, is carried by Turkish honor guard policemen to the Didim district mortuary in Aydin on Sept. 13, 2024. (Credit: Ozan Kose/ AFP)
The funeral of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, an American-Turkish activist killed on Sep. 6 in the West Bank, will be held Saturday in Turkey, with the intention of making her a symbol of her commitment to the Palestinian cause.
Following the announcement of her death, Ankara, which has launched an investigation, strongly condemned the "arbitrary assassination" attributed to the Israeli military. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Turkey will do everything "to ensure that the death of our daughter, Aysenur Ezgi, does not go unpunished."
The 26-year-old woman, who arrived in the United States with her family at the age of 10 months, is to be buried early in the afternoon at the Didim Cemetery in southwestern Turkey, on the Aegean coast, where her relatives live and where her parents and partner, who reside in the U.S., have arrived.
A large crowd is expected, including "high-level" government representatives, according to Ömer Çelik, spokesman for the ruling AKP party, as well as activists from Turkey's main Islamic NGO, IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation.
The burial is scheduled to take place after the midday prayer, which starts at 1:15 p.m. local time (10:15 a.m. GMT).
The young woman's body arrived in Turkey Friday morning from Tel Aviv via Baku. It was immediately transferred to Izmir, the country’s third-largest city on the western coast, where a new autopsy was conducted.
The findings will be attached to the report of the investigation launched by the Ankara prosecutor, according to Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç.
The body of the young activist was greeted upon its arrival in Istanbul by officials and an honor guard from the Turkish military reserved for martyrs.
"A very special person"
Aysenur Eygi, an activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was shot in the head while participating in a protest in the northern West Bank near Nablus.
The Israeli military deemed it "very likely" that gunfire from its ranks "indirectly and unintentionally" killed the young woman.
An autopsy conducted by three Palestinian doctors, with the report transmitted to AFP by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, concluded that a direct shot had penetrated the victim’s skull.
“Aysenur was a very special person. She was sensitive to human rights, nature, to everything,” said her father, Mehmet Suat Eygi, outside the family home in Didim, where his daughter, a recent graduate of the University of Washington, frequently visited during vacations.
Eygi welcomed the Turkish authorities' decision to investigate the "arbitrary assassination," as announced by Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç.
“I learned that our state is pursuing this arbitrary assassination by opening an investigation. I am pleased. I expect the same from the U.S. government, as Aysenur was only 10 months old when she arrived in the U.S.,” he said.
“The only thing I ask of the state is to seek justice for my daughter. That her blood be avenged. That those responsible be punished because she was deliberately targeted,” his mother, Rabia Birden, was quoted as saying by Anadolu Agency.
Turkey is considering issuing international arrest warrants, depending on the results of its investigation.
The minister also urged the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions to establish an independent investigation commission and prepare a report on Ms. Eygi’s death. This report would be added to the ongoing “genocide” case against Israel before the International Court of Justice and to the investigation currently underway before the International Criminal Court.