Ahead of U.S. activist Aysenur Eygi’s funeral, father says U.S. bias for Israel behind lack of investigation

Istanbul — The father of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish-American activist whom Israel admits was likely killed by one of its soldiers a week ago, suggested ahead of her funeral that the U.S. government was deliberately avoiding a direct investigation into its close ally’s actions out of bias. Mehmet Suat Eygi renewed on Thursday his family’s call for American authorities to launch an investigation into her killing, two days before his daughter was scheduled to be buried in Turkey’s Aegean coastal town of Didim.

The bereaved father thanked Turkey for not abandoning the case of what he referred to as his daughter’s “arbitrary murder.”

The Turkish Justice Ministry announced an investigation into Eygi’s killing earlier this week. Her father, speaking during a Thursday memorial gathering in Turkey where friends and family came to express their condolences, said the family still expected the same from the U.S. government.

Eygi’s father argued that the U.S. would typically investigate the killing of one of its citizens like “an eagle on its emblem,” but he said when it comes to Israel, “there is an attempt to evade the issue.”

Eygi was shot in the head near an Israeli settlement near Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Sept. 6. She’d just attended a scheduled protest alongside other activists and Palestinians, but eyewitnesses said she was shot by an Israeli soldier after the protest, which, as they often do, saw demonstrators clash with Israeli forces. She was shot once in the head as she stood under an olive tree.

The Israel Defense Forces said earlier this week that its initial investigation showed it was “highly likely” Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator” of what it called a riot.

Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that has organized protests against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the treatment of Palestinians since before the current war in Gaza began. That war has fueled a surge in violence in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians and seized their property. 

According to the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 660 Palestinians in the occupied territory since October. The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says more than 2,300 people have been displaced from their homes since the beginning of the year alone due to “the demolition of Palestinian-owned structures” in the West Bank.

According to Israeli officials, at least 23 people have been killed in attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank, including members of the security forces, since October.

Eygi’s family had already called for a U.S. investigation into her killing in a statement posted on social media last week, saying she “was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed” by Israeli forces.

The statement called on “President Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties.”

The investigation in Turkey, authorized under a law pertaining to the handling of crimes committed against Turkish nationals abroad, will treat Eygi’s death as a “premediated murder,” which is classified by the country’s justice system as a crime against humanity, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Turkey will also seek international arrest warrants for those responsible for Eygi’s killing, Turkey’s Minister of Justice Yilmaz Tunc said.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned Israel for what he called the “heinous” murder and vowed to take all available legal action to “avenge” her death.

President Biden said in statement that he was “outraged and deeply saddened” by Eygi’s killing, but U.S. officials have not announced any independent probe into her death, despite calls from a few Democratic lawmakers for one.

Mr. Biden said U.S. authorities had full access to the Israeli military’s investigation, and that they would remain in contact with Israeli and Palestinian authorities as their investigations continued.

Senator Patty Murray and Representative Pramila Jayapal sent a letter to Mr. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting an “immediate, transparent, credible and thorough independent U.S. investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)” 

Senator Maria Cantwell has also called for an independent U.S. probe into the incident. Both senators and Rep. Jayapal are Democrats who represent Washington state, where Aysenur Eygi was a resident.  

Eygi’s father described the deep pain his family was going through Thursday and remembered his daughter as “a dedicated advocate for human rights and the environment.”