Hundreds gather on Seattle beach to remember American activist killed by Israeli army

SEATTLE (AP) — For her 26th birthday in July, human rights activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite spots, a sandy beach in Seattle where ferries green and white cross the dark flat water and osprey fish overhead.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people traveled to the same beach with grief, love and anger to mourn her. Eygi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers last Friday in the occupied West Bank, where she had gone to protest and testify about Palestinian suffering.

“I can’t imagine how she felt in her last moments, lying alone under the olive trees,” one of her friends, Kelsie Nabass, told the crowd at the vigil. “What was she thinking? And she knew we’d all show up here tonight for her?

Eygi, who also held Turkish citizenship, was killed while demonstrating against West Bank settlements. A witness who was there, Israeli protester Jonathan Pollak, said he posed no threat to Israeli forces and that the shooting took place in a moment of calm, following clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Israeli troops firing tear gas. tear gas and bullets.

The Israeli military said Eygi was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers, drawing criticism from US officials, including President Joe Biden, who said he was “outraged and deeply saddened” by her killing.

“There must be full accountability,” Biden said in a statement released Wednesday. “And Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”

Deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp. The deaths of non-dual Palestinians rarely receive the same scrutiny.

Eygi’s family called for an independent investigation.

On Thursday, Turkey’s justice minister said his country was investigating Eygi’s death. Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said Ankara’s chief prosecutor’s office was leading the Turkish investigation. Tunc said Turkey would present its findings to a UN court overseeing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa over the Gaza war.

“We will take every judicial step for our martyred daughter Aysenur,” Tunc said.

As the sun set Wednesday, turning the sky on the horizon a pale orange, friends remembered Eygi as outgoing, engaging, funny and devoted. The crowd spilled past a large rectangle of small black, red, green and white Palestinian flags placed in the sand to mark the site of the vigil.

Many attendees wore traditional plaid scarves – keffiyeh – in support of the Palestinian cause and carried photos of Eygi in her graduation cap. They placed roses, sunflowers or carnations at a memorial where battery-operated candles wrote their names in the sand.

Several described becoming fast friends with her last spring during the occupied “Liberated Zone” protest against the Israel-Hamas war at the University of Washington. Yoseph Ghazal said she introduced herself as “Baklava,” a name she sometimes used on messaging apps, reflecting her love of the sweet Mediterranean dessert.

Eygi, who attended Seattle schools and graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology this year, helped negotiate with the administration on behalf of the protesters at the camp, which was part of a larger campus movement against the Gaza war.

“She felt so strong and she loved humanity, she loved people, she loved life so much that she just wanted to help as many as she could,” said Juliette Majid, 26, now a Ph.D. at North Carolina State University in an interview. “He had such a drive for justice.”

Eygi’s uncle told a Turkish television station that she had kept her trip a secret from at least some of her family, blocking relatives from her social media posts. Turkish officials said they were working to repatriate her body for burial, as per the family’s wishes.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry says all arrangements for bringing the body of Eygi, “who was killed ‘on purpose’ by Israeli soldiers, have been completed and are expected to arrive on Friday.” She will be buried in Turkey. He said the case is being investigated by the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem.

Sue Han, a 26-year-old law student at the University of Washington, met Eygi just a few months after meeting her at college boot camp, but they quickly became close, laughing and blasting music in the green Subaru beaten of Eygi. Eygi used to pick up Han from the airport after her travels. Most recently, Eygi greeted her with a plastic bag full of sliced ​​apples and perfectly ripe strawberries.

Han saw Eygi before he left. Eygi felt scared and selfish for letting her loved ones go to the West Bank with the activist group International Solidarity Movement; Han said he couldn’t imagine anyone more selfless.

Eygi liked to connect people, gathering disparate friends over coffee to see how they mingled, Han said. The same was true when she brought people together on the beach and it was true for vigils as well.

“I was looking around at everyone sharing stories about Aysenur, sharing tears and hugs, and that’s exactly what she would have wanted,” Han said. “These new relationships share Aysenur as the starting seed – it’s the legacy they would have wanted.”