Among killed in Gaza Strip is 24-year-old Ukrainian Leyla Khizha. PHOTO
Leila Khizhi, a 24-year-old native of Kharkiv, was killed in Gaza. Two other Ukrainians were injured when they tried to move from the northern part of the Strip to the southern part, fleeing Israeli bombardment.
Censor.NET reports this with reference to the publication Hryti.
Leila Hiji was born in 1999 in Kharkiv. Her father, Palestinian Ghazi Khizi, came to Ukraine to study at university and met his future wife Svitlana Kulikova. After Ghazi graduated, they moved to Palestine.
In 2021, Leila graduated from the Women's College of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Together with her mother, she worked in a beauty salon where she prepared Palestinian girls for weddings. In 2022, Leila got married and later gave birth to a daughter, who was named Elena.
After leaving Kharkiv, Leila had only a Ukrainian birth certificate. She applied to the Ukrainian consulate in Turkey to get a passport. However, the process was delayed because Leila's address in Ukraine is on Russian-occupied territory.
During the fighting, Leila Hiji and her daughter ended up in the Gaza Strip. Her husband was in Egypt at the time. The family asked for help in evacuating, but did not receive it in time.
On the morning of 17 October, Leila was with her daughter at her husband's parents' house when an Israeli missile hit the building. Both were injured and taken to hospital. Leila could not be saved.
Two more Ukrainians - a 50-year-old doctor from Kharkiv and a 16-year-old boy - were injured in an explosion on the Salah ad-Dina highway leading to the border crossing from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. On 14 October, an explosion occurred there, killing dozens of people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. A 50-year-old Ukrainian man was seriously injured, and a 16-year-old boy sustained moderate injuries.
According to Graty, 308 people out of almost 850 Ukrainian citizens living in the Gaza Strip have been included in the evacuation lists. The evacuation is constantly postponed because Israel does not give permission. Meanwhile, about 450 Ukrainians have already been evacuated from Israel.
