Palestinian Authority holds funeral procession for US-Turkish activist said slain by IDF
PA officials among hundreds at elaborate ceremony where members of security forces carry Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s casket; body to be flown to Turkey for burial
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession Monday for a US-Turkish dual national activist who a witness says was shot and killed by Israeli forces while demonstrating against settlements in the West Bank.
Dozens of mourners — including several leading PA officials — attended the procession. Security forces carried the body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, which was draped in a Palestinian flag while a traditional black-and-white checkered scarf covered her face. The 26-year-old’s body was then placed into the back of a Palestinian ambulance.
The memorial, which began at Nablus’s Rafidia hospital, drew large crowds.
The UN rights office said Israeli forces killed Eygi with a “shot in the head.” The mayor of Beita and the Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported that she was killed by Israeli soldiers.
The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged it had opened fire at an “instigator of violent activity” in the area of the protest and that it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired.”
The United Nations said Eygi had been taking part in a “peaceful anti-settlement protest” in Beita, scene of weekly demonstrations.
Turkey condemned her death, while the United States called it “tragic” and pressed its ally Israel to investigate.
The commemoration was postponed from Sunday, due to a dispute between the US and Turkey over “details such as the burial location and the route her body would take,” said Mahmud al-Aloul, a senior Fatah official.
Aloul said that “Palestine would be honored for the martyr to be buried here.”
However, Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oncu Keceli said Turkey was working on repatriating Eygi’s remains for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim as per her family’s wishes, but “because the land crossing from the Palestinian territories to Jordan was closed as of Sunday, the ministry was trying to have the body flown directly to Turkey.”
US officials did not respond to a request for comment.
The border crossing was closed after a terror attack in which a Jordanian truck driver opened fire, killing three Israeli civilians at the crossing. The gateway was later reopened for pedestrian traffic only.
Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli peace activist participating in Friday’s protest where Eygi was killed, said the shooting occurred shortly after dozens of Palestinians and international activists held a communal prayer on a hillside outside Beita overlooking the Israeli settlement of Evyatar.
Soldiers surrounded the prayer, and clashes soon broke out, with Palestinians throwing stones and troops firing tear gas and live ammunition, Pollak said.
The protesters and activists retreated and clashes were subdued, he said. He then watched as two soldiers on the roof of a nearby home trained a gun in the group’s direction and fired.
He said he saw Eygi “lying on the ground, next to an olive tree, bleeding to death.”
Eygi’s family has called on the US to order an independent investigation “into the unlawful killing of a US citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties.”
Asked if the United States would take action against Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week: “First things first — let’s find out exactly what happened and we will draw the necessary conclusions and consequences from that.”
Violence in the West Bank has surged in the past year, following the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were massacred and 251 were taken hostage.
Since that date, Israeli troops have arrested some 5,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,000 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry, more than 670 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 29 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces have been killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
