PONTASSERCHIO, Italy: Funeral services were held Wednesday for a young Palestinian woman who died in Italy shortly after being evacuated from Gaza last week, exposing Italians to the desperate plight of Palestinians in the besieged territory.
The funeral of Marah Abu Zuhri, attended by several hundred people, was interrupted repeatedly by chants of “Free Palestine” and featured speeches by local authorities denouncing Israel’s policy in Gaza and expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
As Palestinian flags fluttered, mourners stood in prayer before Zuhri’s coffin, which was was draped in a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh scarf in the town of Pontasserchio, near Pisa.
Zuhri, 19, had been evacuated to Italy with what Israel had called leukemia, but Italian doctors said they found no initial evidence of that and instead found “profound wasting” and an undiagnosed or misdiagnosed condition.
The United Nations and partners have said 22 months of war have devastated Gaza’s health system, and food security experts have said the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out.” Israel is moving ahead with a new military offensive on some of the territory’s most populated areas,
Mayor Matteo Cecchelli said he wanted to honor Zuhri’s life with a public service in the town’s Park of Peace, to “make noise” about what he called a political and humanitarian “catastrophe” in Gaza.
“The reality is that every day in the Gaza Strip, people are dying in the deafening silence of world governments,” he said to applause. “We cannot remain silent today in this field of peace. There are those who have decided to make noise and have decided to be here to express their dissent toward this genocide.”
Israel asserts that it abides by international law and is fighting an existential war in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 others hostage. Israel has rejected genocide allegations related to its war in Gaza and called them antisemitic.
Zuhri arrived in Italy overnight on Aug. 13-14 as one of 31 sick or injured Palestinians evacuated on an Italian humanitarian airlift that has brought nearly 1,000 ill Palestinians and their families to the country since the war began.
Israel said she had leukemia and had been offered an evacuation earlier but claimed that Hamas had exploited her case, without offering evidence. The UN World Health Organization, which coordinates patients’ evacuations, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has asserted that evacuations are often delayed or canceled by Israeli authorities. It says over 18,000 patients and wounded require treatment outside Gaza.
Zuhri was admitted to the hematology ward of Pisa University’s Santa Chiara Hospital, a known oncological hospital in Tuscany, but died there on Aug. 15.
The hospital said she arrived with a “very complex/compromised clinical picture and in a state of profound wasting.” She suffered a sudden respiratory crisis and subsequent cardiac arrest, which killed her, it said.
The head of the hematology department at the Pisa hospital, Dr. Sara Galimberti, said Zuhri arrived with a diagnosis of suspected acute leukemia, but tests the hospital conducted came back negative, with no signs of the “bad cells” that would indicate leukemia.
Galimberti told reporters that Zuhri likely had been misdiagnosed, and that her condition was nevertheless seriously compromised and had been for a while.
“The patient was in a complete condition of wasting, and completely bedridden despite being 19 years old,” she said.
The hospital conducted a nutritional consultation and began a hypercaloric therapy and transfusional support, but Zuhri died before a full diagnosis was possible, Galimberti said.
The doctor said the woman’s mother, Nabeela Abu Zuhri, declined an autopsy on religious and personal grounds.
The mother, who accompanied her daughter on the flight, spoke briefly at the funeral, thanking Italy for trying to save her daughter and asking for prayers for Palestinians. She said she was “leaving a part of my heart, a part of me, with you” before returning to Gaza.
The imam of Pisa, Mohammad Khalil, who translated for her, tried to calm the crowd and focus on Zuhri, but he also spoke of food shortages and hunger in Gaza.
The United Nations has said starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest levels since the war began. The UN says nearly 12,000 children under 5 were found with acute malnutrition in July — including more than 2,500 with severe malnutrition, the most dangerous level. The World Health Organization says the numbers are likely an undercount.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly asserted that no one in Gaza is starving, with “no policy of starvation in Gaza.”
AP reporting has found that malnourished children were arriving daily at a Gaza hospital, with some dying from hunger, including ones with no preexisting conditions.
Italian funeral for Palestinian woman evacuated from Gaza becomes call to ‘make noise’
https://arab.news/py57h
Italian funeral for Palestinian woman evacuated from Gaza becomes call to ‘make noise’
- Zuhri, 19, had been evacuated to Italy with what Israel had called leukemia
- Italian doctors said they found no initial evidence of that and instead found “profound wasting” and an undiagnosed or misdiagnosed condition
Floods in Mozambique displace more than 300,000 people in one province, governor says
- The premier of one of the provinces in South Africa impacted by weeks of heavy rains said that the damage there could be around $250 million
MAPUTO, Mozambique: More than 300,000 people have been displaced by flooding in a province in Mozambique, its governor said Monday. Authorities had already announced that around 40 percent of the Gaza province has been submerged by floodwater following weeks of torrential rain in parts of southern Africa.
Mozambican President Daniel Chapo has canceled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, because of the severe flooding impacting central and southern parts of the country, according to the state-run daily newspaper Noticias.
Gaza governor Margarida Mapandzene Chongo said around 327,000 people were being housed in dozens of temporary shelters like schools and churches. They had fled or been evacuated from flooded or flood-threatened areas of the southern province that has a population of about 1.4 million.
Humanitarian organizations said earlier this month they feared around 200,000 people would be impacted by the extreme weather in Mozambique, but it appears that number has been exceeded. Inocencio Impissa, a Cabinet minister and spokesperson for the government, said nearly 600,000 people had been affected in the two provinces of Gaza and neighboring Maputo.
Chongo said authorities were now calling for the evacuation of everyone from the lower parts of Gaza’s provincial capital of Xai-Xai as more flooding threatens that city of around 115,000 people that lies next to the Limpopo River. Streets in Xai-Xai resembled rivers as floodwater surged through parts of the city, according to videos on the city’s official Facebook page.
Images from the nearby town of Chokwe that was the site of earlier evacuations show floodwater almost entirely covering houses and other buildings, with only the tips of some of their roofs visible.
Weeks of heavy rains have left more than 100 people dead in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with major rescue efforts still underway in Mozambique and South Africa. Mozambican authorities said the severe flooding in northern South Africa was now impacting Gaza — which borders South Africa — as rivers flowing into Mozambique had burst their banks.
Chongo said “the situation is likely to worsen” in Gaza because of heavy rains in southern Zimbabwe that would also ultimately flow toward her province.
Mozambique, a nation of 34 million people on the southeastern coast of Africa, has borne the brunt of devastating cyclones and a crippling drought in recent years. Several provinces have been hit by these floods, with conditions in three of them described by authorities as “critical.”
A countrywide red alert warning, the highest level, has been issued over the weather.
The National Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction, which is coordinating rescue operations, said around 110 people were rescued by helicopter on Sunday while trapped in trees or other high points. They included children, elderly people and one pregnant woman about to go into labor.
Minister of Transport and Logistics João Matlombe said around 40 percent of Gaza was submerged by water, 152 kilometers (94 miles) of roads across the country had been completely destroyed and more than 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) of roads were damaged.
The recovery cost for Mozambique could run to hundreds of millions of dollars. The premier of one of the provinces in South Africa impacted by weeks of heavy rains said that the damage there could be around $250 million.
