On Friday, September 6, Turkish-American activist Ayșenur Ezgi Eygi was brutally shot by Israeli forces while participating in a protest that occurs every week against an Israeli settlement near Beita, a Palestinian village.
A recent graduate of the University of Washington, Eygi’s life was cut short when she was shot in the head when volunteering alongside the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Eygi was shot due to the allegedly violent conditions of the protest, including threats toward the forces.
In her final moments, she was hiding behind a dumpster at the bottom of a hill when the forces started firing and releasing tear gas toward the end of the protest. There were two men on the other end of the dumpster and they had fired two shots: one that hit a plane, and the other that ended the life of this beloved activist.
Her co-worker who works with Faza’a, another pro-Palestinian group working with ISM, named Vivi Chen, theorizes that her death was anything but an accident due to her American citizenship.
“They have weapons from America,” Vivi Chen said to CNN. “It is not an accident that they hit her in the head. That was on purpose. It’s not that they shot a hundred shots at the same time, and she was hit with one. We were all standing still, not moving. Just standing there, and they shot her through the head.”
Her former university spoke out about her tragic death and expressed their grief while commending her for her very positive attitude and active role in their psychology department.
“This morning brought the awful news that Israeli troops reportedly killed recent UW graduate Ayșenur Eygi in the West Bank,” University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce said to CNN. “Ayșenur was a peer mentor in psychology who helped welcome new students to the department and provided a positive influence in their lives.”
This exceptional peer mentor showed up at Rafidia Governmental Hospital “with serious occupation gunshot wounds to the head,” according to CNN. Unfortunately, the activist was determined dead after many attempts to resuscitate her, and US officials continue to look into the details behind her death.
Eygi now rests in her family’s hometown in southwestern Turkey, her coffin draped in the Turkish flag and placed outside the Didim Central Mosque on Saturday. Hundreds of people gathered around the coffin to pay homage to the activist, and she later had a service conducted for her where prayers from the Quran were recited in her honor, along with white flowers sprinkled onto her grave.
Ultimately, Ayșenur Ezgi Eygi was an activist loved by both the U.S. and Turkey, and she is a constant reminder of all of the good that exists in the world. Her memory is looked back on with honor, pride, and gratitude as a multitude of people recall her involvement in the ISM and in raising awareness for critical causes internationally overall. Her death should serve as a reminder to us all to cherish our time on this beautiful planet, love all of those around us, and dedicate our lives to eradicating hate in the world.
