Memorial underway for U.S. activist shot dead in West Bank

The repatriation of her body has been complicated by the closure of land borders between the West Bank and Jordan, a disruption that took place after a Jordanian gunman killed three Israelis at the main crossing point on Sunday. “Per the family’s request, we are exploring the option of flying the body with a plane directly to Turkey to avoid delays in the transfer,” Keceli said.

Witnesses said an Israeli soldier shot Eygi as she attended a demonstration against Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank village of Beita, near Nablus, on Friday. She had recently arrived in the West Bank to volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist group, according to other activists.

The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged that it opened fire at the protest but has said that it was looking into reports that a foreign national was killed. The White House has said it is “deeply disturbed” by reports of her death.

Activists who were with Eygi at the time of her death said clashes broke out almost immediately after villagers and others gathered to pray on a hilltop opposite the Israeli outpost of Evyatar, which was established illegally — under Israeli and international law — in 2021 on what villagers say was their private land.

After tear gas and live fire was used, demonstrators moved down the hill to the edge of the village to safety, activists said. Witnesses said Eygi, who was waiting in an olive grove, was then shot by the IDF.

Here’s what else to know

Syria blamed Israel for deadly overnight airstrikes near the western city of Masyaf. The Syrian state news agency SANA said that Israeli airstrikes around 11 p.m. local time Sunday targeted “a number of military sites” in central Syria and that the country’s air defense systems “confronted the missiles and shot down some of them.” A local doctor later told the agency that 14 were dead and 43 injured, with some in critical condition. SANA added that one of its photographers was also injured while on duty. The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment; Israel does not typically confirm reports of overseas strikes.

A campaign to vaccinate children in Gaza against polio is shifting to the north of the Strip amid difficult conditions. The United Nations agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said Sunday that social workers were visiting communities in southern Gaza as part of the immunization campaign, which “will soon move to the north to reach as many children as possible.” The World Health Organization previously said that the last phase of the campaign would be rolled out in the north between Monday and Wednesday and would aim to immunize about 150,000 children. The agency said that in the initial phases of the campaign, “a substantial number of children eligible for vaccination” were “unable to reach vaccination sites due to insecurity” and teams had to be deployed to meet them.

At least 40,972 ​​people have been killed and 94,761 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 340 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.

Mohamad El Chamaa and Beril Eski contributed to this report.