Host: Ezgi Toper
Guests: Hamid Ali

Producer: Ezgi Toper
Craft Editor: Nasrullah Yilmaz
Production Team: Afzal Ahmed, Mucteba Samil Olmez, Khaled Selim
Executive Producer: Nasra Omar Bwana

Transcript

HAMID: She was standing under an olive tree with other international volunteers, and she didn't look Palestinian, she's obviously from Türkiye and given that there was only one bullet fired in that direction from such a far distance that hit her in the head. I mean, it kind of just speaks for itself that this was not a random shot. It was not a ricochet, this is an intentional shot fired at these international volunteers and unfortunately, it happened to hit her.

EZGI: One year ago today, Turkish-American peace activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot dead by an Israeli sniper in the occupied West Bank. She was just 26 years old.

Aysenur travelled to the occupied West Bank with other international volunteers to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. On September 6th, 2024, they joined a peaceful protest against an illegal settler outpost. When Israeli forces stepped in to break up the protest, Aysenur and the others stepped back. They were standing yards away in an olive grove when an Israeli sniper shot her in the head.

The Israeli military later claimed her death was “indirect and unintentional”, a sentiment also echoed by then-US President Joe Biden. Despite international outrage, the State Department refused to investigate. But that very same day she was killed, Washington charged Hamas leaders over the death of an American-Israeli hostage in Gaza.

That contrast highlights Washington’s “unwavering” support for Tel Aviv, backed by billions in annual military aid and decades of shielding it from accountability, even when American citizens are killed.

In this episode, I sit down with Aysenur’s husband, Hamid Ali. Together, we talk about who Aysenur Ezgi was, what she stood for, and how Israel got away with murdering her.

HAMID: My name is Hamid Ali. I am 30 years old. I met Aysenur in 2020, and we were married in 2021. So, we would have been married four years last month.

EZGI: So, for people who are hearing her name for the first time, how would you describe Aysenur as a person and as a wife?

HAMID: I think something I've been wanting to emphasise more, especially if people are hearing how she died, is that she was just like a normal 26-year-old woman. There was things that I felt were exceptional about her but there was also a lot that was normal about her on average.

She wasn't this like superhuman figure, hero kind of person that I think sometimes she tends to become, and I would just wanna honour like the realness of her. That being said, she was very silly, she was very playful. She was very curious about things.

She was very connected to her Turkish identity and her family there. I mean, I could go on forever, but, you know, she was silly at home, she loved playing with her cat. She was a really good friend. 

EZGI: I love that you talked about her outside of her activism, which is something that she's now known for. I mean, she was active on so many fronts, Black Lives Matter, Myanmar, and of course, Palestine. What drove her to dedicate so much of her young life to activism and standing up for people?

HAMID: I think it was how she grew up. I mean, she grew up in America, but Also very aware of the disparity of wealth between people in America even. So I think being able to relate to folks that were marginalised or underrepresented, herself being an immigrant, a child of immigrants, was something that I believe gave her this empathy or a way to easily identify and relate to other communities that had faced similar struggles.

EZGI: One of the defining chapters of her activism is when she decided to go to the occupied West Bank. I mean, many of us that are seeing what's happening in Palestine are very affected by the images and the videos, and the stories coming out of Gaza specifically. But Aysenur decided to actually do something and go there. Why did she choose to travel to the occupied West Bank? What was she hoping to achieve in this visit?

HAMID: She felt this in her heart, in her being, that this was wrong. She had already done so much in her way to try and do what she could to correct it. So, you know, whether it was organising an art market fundraiser in our neighbourhood, or whether it was helping with the student protests on the university campus, she still felt like, I think there's something else I can do. And so she decided to go to the West Bank for that reason. And this was the case in all aspects of her life, where if she believed something or she felt something, she either needed to say it or do something about it. 

HAMID: I think the other reason she wanted to go was to understand these people and this culture firsthand that she had been advocating for. I mean, she had Palestinian friends here, she had read up on the subject, of course, but it's different when you're in the place and you're speaking to the people and you're making connections and, you know, she wanted to come back and study anthropology, focusing on the Middle East.

And then from there she just started making plans. She wanted to go to Türkiye. She spent a month in Türkiye before, travelling to the West Bank. Visited all of her family, which, you know, looking back is like such a blessing for them and for her. And then went to Jordan, and then from Jordan crossed into the West Bank.

EZGI: What was day-to-day life like for her in the occupied West Bank? I mean, did she speak to you about the circumstances they were under, what kind of work they were trying to do on the ground?

HAMID: Yeah, and what's unfortunate is that she wasn't there for very long. She got there four days before she was killed. She had just got settled, gotten settled and kind of gotten her bearings, before she went to this protest and was killed. So I mean, from what I understood and from what I can read from a couple of things she wrote to me was that it was super impactful because this was a place that had been, you know, talked about and referenced for so long for her. And being able to be in Jerusalem and go to the Dome of the Rock or see all these places that have been in pictures or had been in videos, and walk around was really powerful for her. She also witnessed the occupation firsthand, even in those short three-four days. I remember her talking about the jarring kind of nature of the Israeli forces being on the streets and like the blatant kind of obvious double standard and up like a segregation and apartheid that was there, even in Jerusalem.

I remember she had like a journal entry that I found later about: as they were entering or driving to Jerusalem from the border, they're on a bus or something, and then the bus got stopped and an Israeli soldier came on and like started checking everyone's papers and her friend that was with her was really like, oh my God, how can this happen? But she was kind of unfazed by it.

She understood that there's inherent risk in travelling to somewhere that's occupied, especially for supporting those being occupied. But there was no fear of not coming back home. There was no expectation of being martyred or becoming a martyr. Like that's not something she intended, that's not something she chose, that's not something she really wanted, of course. 

EZGI: She went to the occupied West Bank to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and oppose the violence that they are facing, yet she herself became a victim of that violence. So what information have you been able to piece together about the events that unfolded that day, and to now has more information surfaced?

HAMID: Yeah, the information I have is based on eyewitness accounts, because there hasn't been any kind of communication or any kind of official results of any credible investigation either by the Israelis, which we wouldn't find credible to begin with, but even their investigation hasn't finished, or we haven't been told about it.

It was Friday, they went to, there's this weekly protest in Beita in the West Bank against an illegal Israeli settlement of that village. So every week, every Friday, they'll pray Jummah at this hilltop under these trees, and then they'll begin this demonstration, just to kind of say, hey, we don't want this illegal settlement, that's gonna displace us. And there's, there's a road that the people will stand on and march. I'm not exactly sure of the specifics of demonstration, but I know it was peaceful, it started out peaceful at least, And then when things started to escalate, and then by that I mean the IDF, or the Israeli military, started to push these protesters back more aggressively with tear gas, with rubber bullets, that kind of thing. And that's when Aysenur, because it was her first protest, that's when she kind of quickly retreated to the back, for her own safety, but also to be able to document like because that's what she was there for. She was there to document and be this protective presence as an international American person. She went back to the solid grove, and that was kind of the retreating points for international volunteers. Again, she was with another volunteer, and they stood there under the olive tree. After about 20 minutes of things kind of dying down, there's 20 minutes of calm, there was no agitation from the protesters, there's no agitation from the military. A couple of shots were fired live ammunition. One hit a Palestinian man, and then the other one hit Aysenur. And then from there, you know, they went to the hospital and unfortunately, she passed away.

EZGI: The Israeli government said it was unintentional. How did you react when you first heard that?

HAMID: This is their playbook, right? So it wasn't surprising. It was extremely frustrating and extremely infuriating, but at the same time it was like, yeah, this is what they do, this is what they say, this is copy-paste. We've become close to the Corrie family, because Rachel Corrie was also from Washington state, which is where we're from and Aysenur grew up. 

EZGI: Hamid references Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American activist who had been protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah during the Second Intifada. During the protest, Corrie was killed when an Israeli military bulldozer ran over her. 

Corrie was a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group of international volunteers who use nonviolent protest to oppose Israel’s occupation. The same group that Aysenur travelled with to the occupied West Bank. In her case, too, the Israeli army claimed her death was an accident and cleared its soldiers of wrongdoing.

HAMID: Anytime, you know, whether they're bombing a hospital or whether they're, you know, killing reporters, it's always the same, you know. In Aysenur’s case, they accused her of throwing rocks, they accused her of agitating, and then it came out that, oh, she was actually 200 yards away under a tree just minding your own business. Then they're like, Oh, we were actually shooting at someone else, and then, Oh, it was unintentional, you know, this is expected, doesn't make it any less infuriating.

EZGI: Despite the fact that she was a US citizen, how do you think the US's response to this situation? How would you evaluate the actions that they took or the lack of action?

HAMID: Early on, when President Biden was questioned about it, he kind of like casually reinforced this uninvestigated narrative that the Israeli military was pushing that, you know, it was an accidental ricochet, which was like, I don't know where they got that from either. 

REPORTER: What’s your reaction sir to the killing of the – the Israel admission that they probably killed the Turkish activist in the West Bank?

BIDEN: We’re finding more detail. Apparently, it was an accident, ricocheted off the ground and got hit by accident. We’re working it out now.

HAMID: And the fact that he so casually endorsed it and repeated it without even looking into it, especially because she was an American citizen, felt more insulting actually, and irresponsible. And then when we went to Washington DC, And we sat down with the Secretary of State, then Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. And kind of asked them these questions too, like, how can you not do anything? What are the options? It was kind of just like shoulder shrugging, like, yeah, we can't really do anything about it, sorry, and, you know, they use the polite words and they tried to make it sound like, in the political speak that is used to make you feel like they're doing something but not doing anything.

EZGI: Mhm.

HAMID: One year later, we're asking for the same thing. Nothing has more has been released. No new information has been. Or you know, shared, there's no indication of any investigation from anywhere and what's really sad is that this is the case for every other. American that's been killed, let alone Palestinians that have been killed. Like, you know, there have been 5 or 6 Americans that have been killed since October 7, including Aysenur. And it's the same case for every one of them, you know, and it's just, it's just, you know, extremely frustrating.

EZGI: Since 2022, nine Americans, including Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers.

NEWS REPORTERS: Sayfollah Musallet, Omar Assad, Shireen Abu Akleh, Tawfiq Ajaq, Mohammad Khdour, Jacob Flickinger, Kamel Jawad, and Amer Rabee. 

EZGI: While the context differs case by case, the US response and lack of accountability form a common thread. After each killing, Washington orders Tel Aviv to investigate. And Israel’s investigations often clear its forces or label incidents as accidents. Despite global outrage, justice for these victims remains unfulfilled.

HAMID: On October 7th, tragically, there were Americans who were killed. Israeli Americans. And you know, the Attorney General of the United States said, you know, when an American is killed, we always investigate. And they, they investigated and they were able to, you know, bring cases against, you know those that had killed these Americans. It's something we've pointed out like a number of times to the Department of Justice and to publicly that there's this very definitive statement being said, what's the difference now between these two cases, like, you know, Aysenur being killed very clearly even less ambiguously, even more unjustly, if not more than about the the same level of injustice that occurred there too. So what is the reason for you not investigating this or not implementing this kind of strong statement that you just said? And I think it's, it's, that's how Israel is able to get away with this, is that the impunity that they're given. It was a conscious decision by that soldier to shoot to fire that bullet, and the commander who gave the order, and the general kind of atmosphere or ability to do for the military to do whatever they want, is reinforced by decades now of impunity by those that support them the strongest of the US in particular. They're not gonna do anything about it, so we can do whatever we want.

EZGI: So you guys are calling for an independent US-led investigation. How are you in that process?

HAMID: That’s kind of our focus now because, not because we're unsure about what happened or we want answers of, you know, how she was killed. I think we all know and we kind of are able to Make our own conclusions about that, but I think it's so important to have it like formally done, and that's why we put we push for an investigation because it unlocks the next step of, which is accountability for now we know who did it, and it's, we have the proof for it. Now we can get some accountability for that, which is the ultimate goal since justice is unlikely. We can, we can hope for accountability instead. We have done things basically to build public pressure to try and influence, and use that as leverage because as individuals and citizens, you know, we're not billionaires, so we don't have a lot of leverage other other than generating public pressure. So everything we've done, we've tried to, or we have passed with the help of many others, a state resolution in the state of Washington, just recognising Aysenur and what happened to her, and, and we've done, you know, things like this, media. We've spoken in DC, we're planning to go again at the end at the in the middle of September after I get back from Turkey, and this is all in a way to keep this public pressure up, keep this relevant, in order to pressure our government to do the right thing.

EZGI: How do you see her death connected to the larger Palestinian struggle for justice and for freedom?

HAMID: Her being there is the, is the, is the connection to the larger struggle, like the fact that she was in the West Bank doing this, you know, why was she there in the first place? Because there's this ongoing issue, in the sense of Aysenur’s story, that it doesn't end there, like, it doesn't end when she was killed, like it's, it's part of this larger pattern and context of brutal oppression in the West Bank as well, especially now.

HAMID: I was asking her before she left, and I was just pulling out every trick in the book to maybe tell her to, to like, you know, choose a different time to go. But I was basically, I was like, you know, what do you think you're gonna, like, you're not gonna stop settler violence but as, as, you know, like what are you hoping to achieve by doing this? And, you know, and then I said, you know, maybe if you, if you, if you're killed and or this martyr, you can like have a big impact with like this. In the way in the wake of your death, like, or as a way to, like, point out this like glaring injustice. and I remember having the conversation, and she was like, yeah, but that doesn't matter, like, we can, I don't have to, you know, you don't have to become a martyr to have an impact. Like you, you can still do an individual act, and they just add on top of each other, and then one day there'll be a straw that breaks the camel's back, basically. And that's what keeps me going, it's her telling me that.

EZGI: What do you think she would have hoped the world would take away from her life and, you know, her sacrifice essentially?

HAMID: I think, firstly, she would, she would want people to remember that this is the daily life of Palestinians, like what our family is going through, and the violence that she faced is something that they face every single day. And it was an exceptional case for her, like it wasn't. It got a lot of attention in America maybe or elsewhere because she wasn't Palestinian, because she was there by choice.

Craig Corey said something, Rachel Corey's dad, when people ask, you know, why was she there?, wasn't she was so brave, you know, his responses, why weren't we all there? Like, it, it wasn't, this isn't something that, we all can't, you know, are, are exempt from, or this is not something that we can't do as well.

You don't have to be this super activist, you don't have to be a lifelong, you know, advocate for justice, you don't have to have a law degree, you don't have to have all these qualifications. You just have to try, which is what she did. Even in the littlest of ways, I think, if you can't do anything about it, speak out about it. If you can't speak out about it, you know, think about it, write about it, and if you can't do that, like, at least in your heart, just feel something and don't close yourself off from this, because that's another thing that these power structures rely on is that you ignore it and you know, close off your heart to it because it is difficult, and it's not easy to do that, it's painful, and it does disrupt your life, but that's the least that we can do to ensure that, you know, and again, these things add up cause, you know. One day, it'll be too much for you, and then you have to say something about it. That won't be enough. You have to do something about it, and these little actions will add up, and I think that's what I hope her legacy is.

EZGI: Thank you so much for joining me today and for everything that you shared.

HAMID: Thank you so much again for doing this and talking about it and letting me talk about her.

EZGI: Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s story is a stark reminder of courage and injustice. 

She travelled to the occupied West Bank to stand in solidarity with Palestinians, to witness the Israeli occupation firsthand, and to act on her convictions. But her death is a reflection of a system where justice is selectively applied, governments and militaries can act with immunity, and ordinary people’s lives are treated as expendable. Yet even in this climate of injustice, Aysenur’s life offers a lesson: it’s not just the grand acts of heroism that matter, but the consistent choice to act, to witness, and to refuse to stay silent.

Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, I’m Ezgi Toper, and this was “In the Newsroom”.