Israeli airstrikes hit central and southern Gaza overnight into Saturday, killing at least 14 people as the friends and family members of a Turkish-American activist killed by an Israeli solider prepared to honor her in a funeral.
The airstrikes in Gaza City hit one home housing 11 people, including women and children, and another strike hit a tent in Khan Younis housing 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 United Nations school housing displaced people on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, the Turkish-American activist killed Sept. 6 by an Israeli soldier, was returned to her home town late Friday accompanied by a police honor guard, the official Turkish news agency reported.
Draped in a Turkish flag, the coffin carrying her remains was carried from a hearse to a hospital in Didim by six officers in ceremonial uniform. Her funeral is due to be held in the coastal town in western Turkey later Saturday.
The 26-year-old activist from Seattle, who held United States and Turkish citizenship, was killed after a demonstration against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to an Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that Eygi was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by Israeli forces. Turkey announced it will conduct its own investigation into her death.
Anadolu Agency reported her body arrived in Didim after an autopsy at the Izmir Forensic Medicine Institute.
As Eygi’s family watched the coffin being unloaded, her mother had to be helped by medics, the agency said.
Her death earned condemnation from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as the United States, Egypt and Qatar push for a cease-fire and the release of the hostages. 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 Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostage after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November. Around a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
It has caused vast destruction and displaced around 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 over 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.
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