Gaza War Enters 12th Month With Fighting, No Sign Of Cease-Fire Deal

The war in Gaza entered its 12th month on Saturday with at least 16 Palestinians killed in Gaza, a plea for justice from the family of a U.S. citizen killed in the West Bank, and no sign of progress on a cease-fire deal.

Israel and Hamas, along with the Islamic Jihad and Fatah, battled Israel across the Gaza Strip — Israel with airstrikes and ground forces, Hamas and its allies with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.

On Saturday, the family of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a woman killed Friday by Israeli soldiers during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the West Bank, demanded an independent investigation. The White House also called for an investigation.

The 26-year-old Eygi, described as an activist, was shot while posing no threat to Israeli forces and during a calm period following earlier clashes, according to witnesses.

"Her presence in our lives was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military," Eygi's family said in a statement. "A U.S. citizen, Aysenur was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video shows came from an Israeli military shooter."

The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday its troops "responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them" during the protest.

"The IDF is looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area. The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review," the military said in a statement.

Eygi died as the Israeli military was withdrawing from Jenin and its refugee camps after a 10-day operation in the West Bank. Fighting in Jenin accounted for the deaths of 21 of 39 Palestinians reportedly killed during the operation.

While not confirming the withdrawal, the IDF summarized its "counterterrorism operations in Jenin," saying it had eliminated 14 terrorists, apprehended more than 30 suspects, and dismantled numerous terrorist infrastructure sites, including an underground weapons storage facility and an explosives lab.

The governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, called it the most destructive incursion by the IDF to date.

Workers continue vaccinating children

Despite the fighting, health workers completed the second of three phases of polio vaccinations.

They aim to vaccinate 640,000 children amid a health care system destroyed by the war. The drive was prompted by the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years.

United Nations officials said they have reached more than half of the children needing the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip. The third phase of vaccinations will be in the north on Sunday.

A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.

Fighting rages

At least nine Palestinians were killed and about two dozen others were wounded overnight into Saturday by Israeli air raids on the urban refugee camp of Nuseirat. Five people were killed in a house and another four in a residential building, according to The Associated Press.

A woman and two children also died in a strike on a house near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

And in northern Gaza, Israel struck a school that was sheltering displaced people in Jabaliya, killing at least four people and wounding about two dozen others, according to Gaza's Civil Defense authority. Israel's military said it struck a Hamas command post embedded in a former school compound.

"The terrorist Wassem Hazem, head of the Hamas terrorist organization in Jenin, was also eliminated," the IDF said in one of the attacks. "Hazem directed shooting and explosive attacks in Jenin and was responsible for advancing terror attacks in Judea and Samaria."

The conflict began after the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.

Since then, Israel's response has killed nearly 700 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to Palestinian health officials. The IDF said most of those killed were militants. Most of the West Bank casualties were men, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

In Gaza, Israel's counteroffensive has resulted in nearly 41,000 Palestinian deaths, according to the territory's health ministry, which says most of the dead are women and children. Israel, which has lost 340 soldiers in Gaza, says most of the dead are combatants.

Hamas has been designated a terror group by the U.S., U.K., EU, and others.

Protests and peace talks

Israelis poured into the streets again Saturday in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and other cities to demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a deal to free the hostages held in Gaza. About 100 remain, though Israel believes a third of them are dead.

Netanyahu says Hamas has introduced unacceptable conditions.

Senior Hamas official Hossam Badran said on Saturday that the group has not made new demands and remains committed to a July 2 proposal put forward by the United States.

The U.S., Egypt and Qatar have been mediating talks for months.

CIA Director William Burns, the chief U.S. negotiator, told an event in London that a more detailed proposal would be made in the coming days.