Palestinians Honor U.S. Activist Killed in West Bank at Memorial Procession

The Washington Post / Miriam Berger, Loveday Morris, Annabelle Timsit

17:54 JST, September 10, 2024

NABLUS, West Bank – Her body was wrapped in a Palestinian flag and black-and-white kaffiyeh, the traditional headscarf that symbolizes solidarity with the Palestinian cause. “Palestine will always remember and honor your sacrifice,” read a sign held by one Palestinian human rights activist.

The official send-off for Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish American activist who witnesses say was shot dead by Israeli forces at a demonstration against settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank last week, took place in the Palestinian city of Nablus on Monday before her body was handed over for repatriation.

Amid a buzz of drums and trumpet players, mourners bore her body on a stretcher before handing it on to a procession of Palestinian security forces personnel in red berets, who transferred it to an ambulance.

Marchers chanted slogans along the way. “Free, free Palestine,” some shouted. The ceremony lasted roughly half an hour.

It was the first leg of Eygi’s journey to Turkey, where her family has requested that she be buried. She was born in Turkey and raised in Washington state, and had recently graduated from the University of Washington, where she studied psychology and minored in Middle Eastern languages and culture.

It remained unclear which authority her body would be immediately handed to after days of diplomatic disputes. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Monday that efforts to bring Eygi’s body to Turkey were continuing. Her burial is expected to take place in Didim in Aydin province on Turkey’s western coast, spokesman Oncu Keceli said in a statement.

The repatriation of her body has been complicated by the closure of land borders between the West Bank and Jordan, a disruption that took place after a Jordanian gunman killed three Israelis at the main crossing point on Sunday. “Per the family’s request, we are exploring the option of flying the body with a plane directly to Turkey to avoid delays in the transfer,” Keceli said.

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Witnesses said an Israeli soldier shot Eygi as she attended a demonstration against Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank village of Beita, near Nablus, on Friday. She had recently arrived in the West Bank to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group, according to other activists.

The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged that it opened fire at the protest but said that it was looking into reports that a foreign national was killed. The White House said it is “deeply disturbed” by reports of her death and called on Israel to investigate. President Joe Biden has not yet spoken with Eygi’s family, the White House added Monday.

Activists who were with Eygi at the time of her death said clashes broke out almost immediately after villagers and others gathered to pray on a hilltop opposite the Israeli outpost of Evyatar, which was established illegally – under Israeli and international law – in 2021 on what villagers say was their private land.

After tear gas and live fire were used, demonstrators moved down the hill to the edge of the village to safety, activists said. Witnesses said Eygi, who was waiting in an olive grove, was then shot in the head by the IDF.

In a morgue on Sunday, a group of about a dozen women, including several female doctors, prepared Eygi’s body ahead of the ceremony. Her eyelids were badly bruised, her hair was soaked and a large hole gaped behind her left ear. Blood soaked through a black-and-white kaffiyeh they tried to secure around her head.

Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, violence has spiked in the occupied West Bank. Through Sept. 2, 634 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Here’s what else to know

Syria blamed Israel for deadly overnight airstrikes near the western city of Masyaf. The Syrian state news agency SANA said that Israeli airstrikes around 11 p.m. local time Sunday targeted “a number of military sites” and that the country’s air defense systems “confronted the missiles and shot down some of them.” The news agency said 18 people were killed and 37 were injured, and a local highway was damaged. SANA added that one of its photographers was injured while on duty. Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack as a violation of its sovereignty, according to SANA. The IDF declined to comment; Israel does not typically confirm reports of such strikes. Amid claims that the targets in Syria had a connection to Iran, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman deferred to Syrian officials, saying Iran would “not confirm such a thing.”

A campaign to vaccinate children in Gaza against polio is shifting to the north of the Strip amid difficult conditions. David Mencer, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, said the immunization campaign will begin in the north on Tuesday. The World Health Organization previously said the northern part of the campaign – the third and final phase – would aim to immunize about 150,000 children. The agency said that in the initial phases of the campaign, “a substantial number of children eligible for vaccination” were “unable to reach vaccination sites due to insecurity” and that teams had to be deployed to meet them.

At least 40,988 ​​people have been killed and 94,825 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 340 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.

Morris reported from Berlin and Timsit from London. Mohamad El Chamaa in Beirut, Sufian Taha in Jerusalem, Beril Eski in Istanbul and Heidi Levine in Nablus contributed to this report.