One year on, family seeks accountability for slain Turkish activist

WASHINGTON

One year after Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was killed by Israeli forces during a protest in the occupied West Bank, her family has said that justice remains elusive.

Eygi, 26, a dual Turkish-U.S. citizen, was killed by the Israeli military during a protest over illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita near Nablus on Sept. 6, 2024.

Despite video evidence and witness accounts showing that she was targeted by an Israeli sniper, the Israeli military’s preliminary findings claimed she was “highly likely” hit “indirectly and unintentionally” as its forces fired at protesters allegedly throwing rocks.

Her family, friends and eyewitnesses reject Israel’s account, calling her killing a deliberate attack on a peaceful protester and urging the US government to launch an independent investigation. To date, no one has been held accountable.

For Eygi’s husband, Hamid Ali, the past year has been both agonizing and surreal.

“It's felt like an extremely long time, but it's also felt like only a few weeks,” he told Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency in a video interview from Seattle, Washington, where Eygi grew up.

“Obviously it's been extremely painful.”

Ali said there has been no progress in the pursuit of justice.

“We're still asking for the same thing as we were on day one. There hasn't been any investigation or the results of an investigation that have been shared with us,” he said.

“From the US, it's been the same kind of responses, or not responses, or inaction.”

Seeing his wife become a symbol — her pictures displayed at protests and elsewhere — has been bittersweet for him.