State Department won’t confirm US officials' attendance at Turkish-American activist's funeral

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US State Department on Monday declined to confirm whether any American officials attended the funeral of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish-American activist killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, stating that the US prefers to keep communications with Eygi’s family “private.”

"We have been in communication with her family on a number of occasions over the past week or so, and I think it's appropriate for us to keep those communications private," Spokesman Matthew Miller said in response to Anadolu’s question about whether any US officials attended Eygi’s funeral in her hometown of Didim, Aydin in western Türkiye, on Saturday.

“So first of all, I will say that cannot understand the pain that her family is going through right now, and how horrific it must be to lose a loved one in these circumstances,” Miller said during the daily press briefing.

“Our hearts truly do go out to them. I want to be respectful of their privacy in this situation.”

According to a New York Times report on Saturday, no American officials attended Eygi’s funeral.

When asked that eyewitness accounts discredit Israel’s initial findings of Eygi’s killing, Miller said that the initial findings an Israeli investigation into the killing of Eygi in occupied West Bank do not exonerate Israeli security forces.

He said that the initial findings already show that something went “tragically wrong and you had the killing American citizen that never should have occurred”.

He reiterated the US call on Israel that rules of engagement need to be changed to prevent the killing of “unarmed civilians who are doing nothing more than showing up at a peaceful protest”.

Miller said the US will wait for the results of the Israeli investigation and signaled that if it is not satisfied with the results of the investigation, it will seek to take additional measures.

Eygi, 26, a dual Turkish-US national, was killed by Israeli forces on Sept. 6 during a peaceful protest against illegal Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Preliminary findings from the Israeli army's investigation on Tuesday indicated that Eygi was "highly likely" hit "indirectly and unintentionally" by Israeli fire targeting a main instigator during the protest.

However, video evidence and eyewitness accounts have contradicted Israel's version of events. A recent report by The Washington Post revealed that Eygi was shot more than 30 minutes after the peak of confrontations in Beita and about 20 minutes after protesters had moved over 200 yards down the main road, away from Israeli forces.

Eygi’s family says she was killed in a targeted attack and is calling on the US government to launch an independent investigation into her killing, similar to the one being conducted by the Turkish government.