Months after her murder by Israeli troops, the family of Turkish American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi awaits justice. The family said it was “frustrating to hear the same things” without meaningful action after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday.
“The secretary was attentive in listening to us, and unfortunately repeated a lot of the same things that we’ve been hearing for the past 20 years, particularly since Rachel Corrie’s killing, who is also a Washington State resident, like my wife. It’s frustrating to hear the same things again,” her husband Hamid Ali told reporters after the meeting at the State Department.
“We hope that things will be different this time around. But as I said, our expectations are what they are,” he said, repeating the family’s call for a U.S.-led investigation into her killing.
Özden Bennet, Eygi’s sister, said the U.S. is still awaiting an Israeli investigation, which she said the family does not find “credible.”
“He listened to our frustrations, which were long, and at this point, we did leave asking the Secretary of State Blinken to push publicly and put pressure on the Israeli government to, at the very least to, finish their investigation into my sister’s killing before the change-over in the administration,” she said.
Bennett noted that before Monday’s meeting at the State Department, no one from the White House or the Biden administration had contacted the family to offer condolences when asked about any such contact. “There was a news reporter who mentioned that they had been in contact with family, so I’m not sure who that would be, but we, standing here representing her family, have not been in contact with anyone from the White House,” she added.
Ali said his eyebrows were “raised” upon hearing the same rhetoric repeated after the killing of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American woman who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Recalling the U.S.’ call on Israel to change their rules of engagement, he said: “We’ve seen changes in rules of engagement and conduct happen for Israel in the Israeli military, but obviously it didn’t work, and if it had, we wouldn’t be here today.”
The meeting comes as the family continues to urge the Biden administration to launch an independent investigation into her killing, saying that she was killed in a deliberate attack during a peaceful protest.
The U.S., on the other hand, has called on Israeli authorities to conduct a “swift, thorough and transparent investigation” into her killing three months ago, but no accountability has been achieved to date as the investigation is still ongoing.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said after the meeting that Blinken informed Eygi’s family that Israel told the U.S. in “recent days” that they are “finalizing” their investigation into the matter. “He committed to them that as soon as we learn anything about the results of that investigation, we will report it to them,” he said. Miller added that launching an investigation into Eygi’s killing is under the responsibility of the Justice Department, not the State Department.
Eygi, 26, was killed on Sept. 6 during a peaceful protest against illegal Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. A preliminary investigation by Israel found that Eygi was “highly likely” hit “indirectly and unintentionally” by Israeli fire that was targeting a “main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks” during the protest. Video evidence and witness accounts, however, have contradicted Israel’s version of events, with many saying she was directly hit by an Israeli sniper.
A report by The Washington Post also revealed that Eygi was shot more than 30 minutes after the peak of confrontations in Beita and about 20 minutes after protesters had moved over 200 yards down the main road, away from Israeli forces.
Turkish prosecutors launched an investigation on Sept. 11 into the killing of Eygi, who was laid to rest in the town of Didim in western Türkiye after her body was repatriated.
On Monday, a vigil was held outside the White House in memory of Eygi. Eygi’s family, including her father, her sister Ozden Bennett and her husband, joined the event at Lafayette Square alongside Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and numerous attendees demanding justice for her killing.
Addressing the gathering, Tlaib, who represents Michigan’s 12th District and is the only Palestinian American in Congress, criticized President Joe Biden for failing to order an independent investigation into Eygi’s death, instead deferring to an ongoing Israeli probe that has yet to deliver accountability more than three months after her killing.
“We know that President Biden recently said, ‘If you harm an American, we will respond.’ But his inaction has made it clear once again that when it comes to the Israeli government murdering Americans, it’s a complete lie,” Tlaib said.
She also criticized Biden’s earlier characterization of Eygi’s death as a “tragic error.”
“We all know that Ayşenur’s murder was not a ‘tragic error,'” she said. “It was devastating for her family to hear them say that, and we know that and she knew that what the Israeli military did to her, they do to the Palestinians every single day,” Tlaib added, calling for accountability, demanding an independent investigation.
“Justice for Aysenur, justice for (American activist) Rachel (Corrie), justice for (Palestinian American) Omar Assad, justice for (Palestinian American journalist) Shireen Abu Akleh, and justice for the tens of thousands of Palestinians murdered by the Israeli government in the genocide every single day,” she said.