DIDIM, Turkiye: Mourners gathered in southwest Turkiye on Saturday for the funeral of a US-Turkish activist, who was shot dead while protesting Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The killing last week of 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi has sparked international condemnation and infuriated Turkiye, further escalating tensions over the war in Gaza that began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Eygi’s body, wrapped in the Turkish flag and carried by uniformed officers, arrived at its final resting place in the Aegean town of Didim.
A picture of Eygi was placed near the coffin during the funeral at the local mosque.
A large crowd gathered during the prayers including Eygi’s family, members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted AKP party, and activists advocating the Palestinian cause.
Protesters chanted slogans near the mosque showing their support for Palestinians.
Eygi was shot while taking part in a demonstration on September 6 in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, near Nablus.
She was a human rights activist and volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement, which calls for resisting the oppression of Palestinians using non-violent methods.
Her family wanted Eygi to be buried in Didim, where her grandfather lives and her grandmother has been laid to rest. She was a frequent visitor to the seaside resort.
Ankara said this week it was probing her death and pressed the United Nations for an independent inquiry.
Turkiye said it was also planning to issue international arrest warrants for those responsible for Eygi’s death, depending on the findings of its investigation.
The Israeli military has said it was likely Eygi was hit “unintentionally” by forces while they were responding to a “violent riot,” and said it is looking into the case.
President Erdogan himself did not show up in Didim but he sent his vice president, foreign, interior and justice ministers.
Opposition CHP party chief Ozgur Ozel attended the funeral.
The United Nations said Eygi had been taking part in a “peaceful anti-settlement protest” in Beita, the scene of weekly demonstrations.
Israeli settlements, where about 490,000 people live in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
The young woman’s body arrived in Istanbul Friday from Tel Aviv, before being transferred to Turkiye’s third-biggest city Izmir, where an autopsy was carried out.
Initial findings from that autopsy revealed a bullet hit her in the head, and the cause of Eygi’s death was defined as “skull fracture, brain haemorrhage and brain tissue damage,” state-run TRT television reported.
The report overlapped with an initial autopsy carried out by three Palestinian doctors, which concluded that a bullet passed directly through the victim’s skull.
Her mother, Rabia Birden, on Friday urged Turkish officials to pursue justice.
“The only thing I ask of our state is to seek justice for my daughter,” she was quoted as saying by Anadolu news agency.
Her father, Mehmet Suat Eygi, paid tribute to his daughter in Didim, telling AFP that she was a “very special person.”
“She was sensitive to human rights, to nature, to everything,” he said.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for Israel to provide “full accountability” for Eygi’s death.
Erdogan has vowed to ensure “that Aysenur Ezgi’s death does not go unpunished.”
Her death has further inflamed tensions between Turkiye and Israel.
Erdogan has become one of the most strident critics in the Muslim world of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
He has accused the government of “state terrorism” — branding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the “butcher of Gaza” while suspending all imports and exports to Israel.