US officials skip funeral in Turkiye of Aysenur Eygi, an American citizen of Turkish origin

United States officials stayed away from the heroes funeral given to Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, the Turkish-American pro-Palestinian activist, killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, as she was laid to rest Saturday in the town of Didim on Turkiye’s Aegean coast, according to a leading American newspaper.

“With Turkish flags flying and chants of ‘God is great’ resounding through the cemetery,” The New York Times reported that the funeral for Ms. Eygi, 26, was “deeply Turkish, and profoundly pro-Palestinian.

Turkish security forces, dressed in black uniforms, carried her flag-draped coffin.

“Hundreds of people, many carrying Palestinian flags and wearing Palestinian scarves, gathered at the central mosque in the town of Didim to say prayers for her, including senior Turkish officials,” NYT correspondent Ben Hubbard wrote.

“No American officials attended, and there was not an American flag in sight,” the correspondent noted, pointing out that Ms. Eygi had moved to the United States as a toddler, acquired citizenship and spent most of her life there.

The report highlighted the starkly different stances toward the conflict her two countries had taken since the Oct 7 Israeli war on Gaza: The United States has stood by Israel, continuing to supply its military with bombs even as concerns about Palestinians civilian deaths have mounted, it was pointed out.

Turkey, on the other hand, has embraced the Palestinians, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decrying Israel’s conduct and defending Hamas, the dispatch said.

Two relatives of Ms. Eygi decried American response to Ms.Eygi’s killing.

In an interview with the Times before her funeral, her father, also a U.S. citizen, said the United States had not stood up for her.

“I have been living in the U.S. for 25 years, and I know how seriously the U.S. looks out for the safety of its citizens abroad,” said her father, Mehmet Suat Eygi. “I know that when something happens, the U.S. will attack like the eagle on its seal. But when Israel is in question, it transforms into a dove.”

Ms. Eygi was shot in the head and died on Sept. 6 during a protest by Palestinian and international activists against an Israeli settler outpost near the village of Beita in the occupied West Bank.

Activists who were with her at the time said that she had been standing more than 200 yards away and downhill from the Israeli soldiers. They added that the protest, during which some demonstrators had thrown stones, had calmed down by the time she was shot.

Senior officials from both of Ms. Eygi’s countries — she was born in Turkey but obtained U.S. citizenship in 2005, her father said, and had lived in the Seattle area — have condemned her killing.

Underlining the extent to which Turkey has adopted her killing as a national cause, other officials who attended the funeral included the vice president; the justice, interior and foreign ministers; the head of the largest opposition party; and a former prime minister.

Turkey’s president, Erdogan, said on Monday that his country would seek to add her killing to a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. After Ms. Eygi’s body arrived in Turkey on Friday, Turkey performed an autopsy before transporting it to Didim.

On its part, Israel has rejected accusations of genocide, saying it is defending itself after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.

Ms. Eygi’s death came as international criticism of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza has been rising. More than 41,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed, according to the Gazan health ministry.

Airstrikes continued into Saturday, with WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency, reporting that 10 people, including women and children, had been killed in a strike that hit a home in Gaza City, among other deaths in the enclave. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Friends and relatives of Ms. Egyi recalled her as passionate about standing up for people she considered to be victims of injustice, the dispatch said.

Ms. Eygi had been in Turkiye before traveling to the West Bank and had told her relatives that she was going to Jordan, which is much safer, Mr. Eygi said. When they discovered through social media where she actually was, Mr. Eygi called her.

“I asked her not to die,” he recalled telling her. “She said, I’ll try my best.”

She was shot the next day.

Ms. Egyi’s father said that he had not received even a condolence call from an American official.

“The Turkish government is following the case,” he said, adding, “I hope the U.S. government will do the same.”