Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi’s Family Says She Was Always Drawn to Helping Her Community

We speak with the husband and sister of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September, who have criticized the Biden administration for failing to independently investigate her death. The recent University of Washington graduate was fatally shot in the head after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, which she attended as an international observer. Witnesses say she was shot by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed. Members of Eygi’s family spoke with Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week but left the meeting with little hope the U.S. would hold Israel accountable. “Accountability starts with an investigation by the U.S. of the killing of one of its own citizens by an ally,” says Eygi’s husband Hamid Ali. “The answer to the question of why my wife is not getting justice is because Israel enjoys this level of impunity throughout its existence that no other country, no other state in the world enjoys.”

TRANSCRIPT

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

The Biden administration is coming under criticism this week for failing to independently investigate the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old American activist shot to death by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September. The recent University of Washington, “U Dub,” graduate was fatally shot in the head after taking part in a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita. Witnesses say she was shot by an Israeli sniper after the demonstration had already dispersed.

On Monday, members of her family met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken but left the meeting saying they had little hope the U.S. will hold Israel accountable. Her family also held a vigil outside the White House on Monday night and a press conference on Tuesday outside the Capitol, where speakers included Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Outside reporting, including an in-depth investigation by The Washington Post, directly challenges the Israeli government’s account of what happened and how Ayşenur was killed. This investigation found that Ayşenur was shot more than 30 minutes after the confrontation that the IDF claimed to be responding to had already ended. And she was killed from more than 200 yards away, horrifically shot in the head. That is not a, quote, “mistake,” as the IDF has claimed. That is not accidental. …

I am absolutely appalled with the lack of movement on this case, the lack of attention from the State Department, the U.S. State Department, for the well-being and the safety of our own U.S. citizens. Nothing that I have heard from the State Department gives me any assurance at all that the killing of a United States citizen by the IDF is being treated with the urgency that it deserves. And this is all particularly galling when the U.S. continues to provide unfettered aid to Israel — bullets, bombs, weapons — violating our own domestic Leahy Laws and international humanitarian law.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, represents Seattle, where Ayşenur also grew up and went to college. Pramila Jayapal was speaking Tuesday at a news conference calling for a U.S. probe into Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi’s death, shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

We’re joined now by Ayşenur’s sister, Ozden Bennett, and her husband, Hamid Ali.

We thank you so much, both, for joining us, and our deepest condolences on the death of your wife and your sister. Ozden, if you could start off by talking about your meeting with Blinken? Both of you weigh in. Why did he agree to meet with you? Your sister is an American citizen. And what he promised?

OZDEN BENNETT: My sister’s killing happened over three months ago, so we waited a long time to meet with Secretary Blinken. And unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot out of that meeting on Monday with him. He stuck to a lot of his talking points, which was that they will review the rules of engagement and conduct within the Israeli military because of their escalations and actions, and, essentially, kept deferring to the Israeli investigation. Anytime that we countered the comments that he was making, he would just circle back and repeat the same things. And —

AMY GOODMAN: Hamid, let me ask you: Has President Biden called you on the death of your wife? Or, Ozden, on the death of your sister?

HAMID ALI: No, no, President Biden has not reached out to us directly.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Monday that Blinken told you that, quote, that “Israel has told us in recent days they’re finalizing their investigation into the matter.” Have you received any communication from the Israeli government at all?

HAMID ALI: No, we haven’t received any communication from the Israeli government. I mean, we received three pictures with some captions from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem via — or, from the Israeli government via the embassy in Jerusalem. But that’s about it. There’s been no other communication.

OZDEN BENNETT: And when we asked Blinken for what they — what communication or documents or anything they’ve received from Israel themselves, the answer was “nothing at this time.”

AMY GOODMAN: Hamid, can you tell us about your wife? The university — went to University of Washington, graduated. And then, what happened on that fateful day?

HAMID ALI: Yes. As I understand it and as I’ve been told by eyewitnesses and as I’ve read in The Washington Post investigation, she attended a weekly demonstration in Beita against an illegal Israeli settlement. She was there as an international observer. She was not part of the protest in the same way that — she was nonparticipating necessarily. She was there to document and as a protective presence and to bear witness, really, of their right to protest against that illegal settlement.

She was standing under an olive tree. She had just helped an older woman, who was also there as an international observer, who had just sprained her ankle. And the last conversation that they had was that they felt safe in that position underneath that olive tree. And then that’s when she was shot.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ozden, could you tell us — your sister was drawn to advocating for human rights around the world. Could you talk about her growing up and her decision to get involved in these kinds of activities?

OZDEN BENNETT: Growing up, even from a young age, she was just always very drawn to helping her community, helping people in need, taking mentorship positions, volunteering where she could. And starting in high school, she became really politically engaged in the Seattle community. Around Trump’s election, for example, she was really moved by Bernie Sanders and his messaging. She was really moved against what Trump was messaging at the time and trying to implement. And she really rallied protests at that time in Seattle. And through the years, she has volunteered abroad in Myanmar to help relief efforts there.

She related to what’s happened in Gaza since October 7th, had raised over $40,000 working with the community at large, putting together a fundraiser, an art fundraiser, to help give aid to children in Gaza. She was a huge part of the student leadership that led the encampment movement on the campus of University of Washington. She was at the negotiations table trying to push the president and the administration on campus to divest from certain companies that were harming Palestinians.

And even after all that, she felt like what she had done wasn’t enough, and she felt moved to do what she could. And she felt like, in her words, the least she could do was to go there and bear witness as an international observer and document the injustices that she was seeing and, hopefully, be — have the Israeli military think twice before using lethal action, which, unfortunately, is what killed her that day.

AMY GOODMAN: Hamid Ali, you wrote an op-ed in The Hill newspaper in Washington that was headlined “Why isn’t Israel being held accountable for killing my wife and other innocents?” If you can answer that question right now and what exactly Blinken said he is waiting for, if he’s talking about an Israeli military investigation? I wanted to go back to what the State Department originally said, Matt Miller saying, “Israel has told us in recent days they’re finalizing their investigation.” You’re meeting with all sorts of congressmembers, right? Jim McGovern, Pramila Jayapal, Senators Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen — Chris Van Hollen, who has called for the release of the investigation of the well-known journalist, also an American, the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed, what, May 11th, 2022, by an Israeli sniper as she was covering the Israeli raids into the Jenin refugee camp. What would it look like if the U.S. held Israel accountable for the death of your wife?

HAMID ALI: Well, simply, to begin, accountability starts with an investigation by the U.S. of the killing of one of its own citizens by an ally. I think that’s where it starts. Accountability — I mean, nothing will bring my wife back. But at the very least, we can hold those who were responsible — for example, the soldier who fired that bullet, the unit commander who gave the order, and anyone else responsible for that action being taken — face some sort of punishment, because I think the answer to the question of why my wife is not getting justice is because Israel enjoys this level of impunity throughout its existence, that no other country, no other state in the world enjoys. And it seems to be unconditional at this point. I mean, I don’t know what else needs to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: And are you calling for something to happen before Trump takes office? Are you concerned about what will happen next?

HAMID ALI: I think it should happen as soon as possible. We’ve been saying this since September. I don’t think the election has anything to do with it. I don’t think Trump coming into office changes anything. I think — I hope any administration would take seriously the killing of one of its citizens. So, 30 days are left in this administration. That’s a long time, I think, for someone to just simply make a statement, namely President Biden or Secretary Blinken, to just say, “Hey, I think we need an investigation into the killing of Ayşenur,” because there’s still a lot of time, and I don’t want to take ownership off of the administration for what’s happened here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hamid, I wanted to ask you — she was also a dual citizen. She was a citizen of the U.S. and Turkey. And Turkey has opened its own investigation into the killing. Have you heard anything from the Turkish government?

HAMID ALI: The Turkish investigation is ongoing, as far as I know. I don’t know as many of the details there. But I think it just speaks to the stark contrast into these two governments of which she was a citizen, my wife was a citizen. One government has taken no pause, no hesitation to begin seeking justice for one of its citizens, and the other government, the U.S., has been dragging its feet, basically not doing anything and letting the military and the government responsible for killing her take the lead and investigate themselves, which we’ve seen historically has never proven any accountability, has never brought forward any accountability, especially, like you said, in the current administration even with Shireen Abu Akleh, that you mentioned earlier.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you both for being with us. And again, our deepest condolences. Hamid Ali is the husband of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old American Turkish citizen who was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in September. We’ll link to your article in The Hill. And we want to thank Ozden Bennett, the sister of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi. They have both just returned from a meeting with the secretary of state, Tony Blinken.

Coming up, we look at Donald Trump’s war on the press, as he sues The Des Moines Register and ABC News settles a lawsuit that Donald Trump brought against them for over $15 million. It’s not clear why. Stay with us.