PONTASSERCHIO, Italy (AP) — 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 towards 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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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.
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Winfield reported from Rome.
