Thousands of mourners in Turkey have gathered for the funeral of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.
The killing last week of 26-year-old Eygi sparked international condemnation against Israel. She was shot in the head while taking part in a demonstration on September 6 against illegal Israeli settlements.
On Saturday, family members, friends and supporters congregated in Eygi’s home town of Didim in western Turkey to bury her.
Eygi’s body, wrapped in the Turkish flag and carried by uniformed officers, arrived at its final resting place. A picture of Eygi was placed near the coffin during the funeral at the local mosque.
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Didim, said that for days, Eygi’s family have been receiving visitors from Turkey, the United States and other parts of the world, as they awaited the arrival of her remains.
“You can see the disbelief in their faces that Aysenur is no more,” Serdar said, adding that tight security measures were in place with top government officials attending her funerak.
Eygi’s coffin was brought to the coastal Aegean town on Saturday following a martyrs’ ceremony at Istanbul airport on Friday.
She was a frequent visitor to Didim, and her family said they wanted her to be buried there, where her grandfather lives and her grandmother has been laid to rest.
Eygi’s 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 Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
‘Deliberately targeted’
“Aysenur’s blood will not be in vain and we will hold accountable those who killed her in international courts,” said Numan Kurtulmus, Turkey’s Parliament Speaker, in Didim on Saturday.
He said the responsibility for the killing “lies with Israel and its supporters”.
Turkey said this week it was investigating her death and pressed the United Nations for an independent inquiry.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised to ensure “that Aysenur Ezgi’s death does not go unpunished”.
US President Joe Biden called for Israel to provide “full accountability” for Eygi’s death.
The Israeli military has said it was likely Eygi was hit “unintentionally” by forces while they were responding to a “violent riot” in Beita, near Nablus.
But growing evidence contradicts that, with witnesses saying Israeli soldiers deliberately killed her.
Among the witnesses to her killing was an Italian activist who rode with Eygi in the ambulance as she was transferred to Beita and then to Nablus, where she was pronounced dead.
“We were clearly visible to the army, there was nothing happening next to us … it was a shoot to kill,” the Italian activist said.
Eygi’s family asked the US to launch an independent inquiry into her killing, saying an Israeli probe was not “adequate”.
The United Nations said Eygi had been taking part in a “peaceful anti-settlement protest” in Beita, the scene of weekly demonstrations, when she was killed.
Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that has been protesting against Israel’s occupation, and arrived in the West Bank a few days before she died.
