Israeli airstrikes hit central and southern Gaza overnight into Saturday, killing at least 14 people as friends and family members of a Turkish-American activist killed by an Israeli soldier honored her in a funeral.
The airstrikes in Gaza City hit one home housing 11 people, including three women and four children, and another strike hit a tent in Khan Younis with Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza’s Civil Defense said Saturday. They followed airstrikes earlier this week that hit a tent camp on Tuesday and a United Nations school sheltering displaced people on Wednesday.
Polio vaccination campaign
A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio drew down, and the World Health Organization said about 559,000 people under the age of 10 — seven out of every eight children the campaign aimed to vaccinate — have recovered from their first dose. The second doses are expected to begin later this month as part of an effort in which the WHO said parties had already agreed to.
“As we prepare for the next round in four weeks, we’re hopeful these pauses will hold, because this campaign has clearly shown the world what’s possible when peace is given a chance,” Richard Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in Gaza and the West Bank, said in a statement on Saturday.
Turkish-American activist buried
In Turkey, activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old from Seattle who held U.S. and Turkish citizenships, was laid to rest in her hometown of Didim on the Aegean Sea.
The Israeli military has said that Eygi was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on September 6. Turkey announced it will conduct its own investigation into her death. An Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting said she was killed after a demonstration against Israeli settlements.
“We are not going to leave our daughter’s blood on the ground, and we demand responsibility and accountability for this murder,” Numan Kurtulus, the speaker of Turkey’s parliament, told mourners.
Eygi’s body had been earlier brought from a hospital to her family home and Didim’s Central Mosque. Thousands of people bid her farewell in the town’s streets, which were lined with Turkish flags.
Her death was condemned by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as the United States, Egypt and Qatar push for a cease-fire and the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Talks have repeatedly bogged down as Israel and Hamas accuse each other of making new and unacceptable demands.
The war began when Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an October 7 terror attack on southern Israel. They abducted 250 people and are still holding about 100 hostages after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
The United States, the U.K. and other Western countries designate Hamas as a terror group.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced roughly 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times, and plunged the territory into a severe humanitarian crisis. Gaza’s Health Ministry says upwards of 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count, but says women and children make up just over half of the dead. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.
