Death Toll From 6 Weeks of Monsoon Rains Jumps to 154 In Pakistan

Motorcyclists drive through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rainfall in Lahore, Pakistan, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Motorcyclists drive through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rainfall in Lahore, Pakistan, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
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Death Toll From 6 Weeks of Monsoon Rains Jumps to 154 In Pakistan

Motorcyclists drive through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rainfall in Lahore, Pakistan, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Motorcyclists drive through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rainfall in Lahore, Pakistan, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

The death toll from nearly six weeks of monsoon rains and floods across Pakistan has risen to 154, officials said Thursday, as downpours continued in much of the country, inundating some villages.
More than 1,500 homes have been damaged since July 1, when the monsoon rains began, the National Disaster Management Authority said. Orchards in remote areas of the southwestern Baluchistan province were damaged, and rains flooded many streets in the eastern city of Lahore.
The Pakistan-administered portion of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir has also been battered by rains, causing landslides, The Associated Press said.
Many of the 154 deaths occurred in the eastern Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, according to the disaster agency and provincial authorities.
Pakistan is in the middle of the annual monsoon season, which runs from July through September. Scientists and weather forecasters blame climate change for heavy rains in recent years.
So far this year, Pakistan has received less rain than in 2022, when climate-induced downpours swelled rivers and inundated at one point one-third of the country, killing 1,739 people and causing $30 billion in damage.



Biden, Harris Seek 'Full Accountability' after Killing of US Citizen in West Bank

US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
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Biden, Harris Seek 'Full Accountability' after Killing of US Citizen in West Bank

US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday called the Israeli military's killing of an American activist in the Israeli-occupied West Bank "unacceptable" and said Israel must do more to make sure it never happens again.

Israel has taken responsibility for the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who was killed while taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the West Bank. Biden said the US government expects continued access to the criminal investigation into the shooting.
"There must be full accountability. And Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again," Biden said in a statement.
Harris said in a separate statement that no one should be killed for participating in a peaceful protest.
"The shooting that led to her death is unacceptable and raises legitimate questions about the conduct of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) personnel in the West Bank," she said.
Eygi, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead on Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers. Israel has said her death was accidental.

For her 26th birthday in July, Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and osprey fish overhead.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people traveled to the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her.

As the sun set, turning the sky on the horizon a pale orange, friends recalled Eygi as open, engaging, funny and devoted. The crowd spilled beyond a large rectangle of small black, red, green and white Palestinian flags staked in the sand to mark the venue for the vigil.
Many attendees wore traditional checked scarves — keffiyehs — in support of the Palestinian cause and carried photographs of Eygi in her graduation cap. They laid roses, sunflowers or carnations at a memorial where battery-operated candles spelled out her name in the sand.

Eygi's relatives called on Biden and Harris to speak to the family directly and order an independent investigation into her shooting.
To call her death an accident "is complicity in the Israeli military’s agenda to take Palestinian land and whitewash the killing of an American. ... Let us be clear, an American citizen was killed by a foreign military in a targeted attack," the family said in a statement.
Democratic US Senator Patty Murray and Representative Pramila Jayapal wrote a letter to Biden on Wednesday and requested "an immediate, transparent, credible and thorough" independent US investigation.