House explosion in Maryland kills 2 and damages nearby homes

BEL AIR, Md. (AP) — Two people were killed and 12 families displaced after a Maryland house exploded Sunday amid reports of a possible gas leak, fire officials said.

Neighbors described feeling and hearing the early morning blast that damaged a number of surrounding houses in Bel Air, a town about about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Baltimore.

Firefighters were called to the area around 6:40 a.m. for a report of a gas leak and an outdoor odor of gas, said Oliver Alkire, a master deputy with the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Alkire said that as firefighters were approaching, they began receiving calls that the house had exploded. First responders pronounced one person dead at the scene, and a second body was later found in the rubble.

Alkire said that a home next door to the explosion was heavily damaged, and a woman in that house was treated for injuries on the scene. Two utility workers were in the area to work on a reported electrical issue, but authorities didn't immediately say if that was related to the explosion.

The first victim found was later identified as a contractor for the utility BGE, according to a statement released by Harford County Fire and EMS.

The State Fire Marshal's Office said late Sunday that the second body was found in the rubble of the home at the center of the blast. The person is believed to be the home's 73-year-old owner, but positive identification was pending, according to the fire officials' statement.

Investigators were also working to establish how many houses were damaged and how far the blast radius was. Harford County fire officials said that at least 12 families have been displaced due to damage to neighboring houses. Authorities said there was no ongoing threat to the public.

“I’ve been on the job for nearly 18 years, and this is one of the largest explosions I’ve seen,” Alkire said.

A photo posted by county officials showed several firefighters around the rubble of the home with another damaged home in the background. Charred pieces of wood were heaped on the property, and insulation and splintered wood spilled out into the street. Small pieces of debris hung from nearby trees. Later in the morning, emergency workers were seen using heavy equipment to search through the rubble.

More than 60 first responders came to the scene from multiple agencies. The state fire marshal, sheriff and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were assisting with the probe, as is standard procedure.

Lisa Czawlytko, who lives in a nearby condominium, said the explosion woke her and her three children and knocked a pet bird to the ground.

She said the roof structure on four condominium buildings buckled and sent aluminum siding from the roof down to the ground. She attended a news conference at a nearby library to ask officials if it was safe to be in the building.

She said she felt the force of the explosion.

“The whole building shook like a major earthquake,” she said in an interview.

Her 8-year-old daughter described it as scary, when her mother asked her how she felt when it happened .

“I thought a bomb dropped,” Myca said.

The blast woke up Greg Clifford from a heavy sleep inside his townhouse about a block away. He first thought that a tree had fallen on his deck, or that a lightning strike caused the loud noise.

“It just shook the whole thing,” Clifford said. “It was crazy loud.”

He also noted some damage to his home.

“The window in my bedroom is pulled away from the framing of the house,” Clifford said. “I mean, I can look straight down to my deck. My basement door — the glass — it didn’t shatter, but it blew in, and my frame’s all cracked out.”

Crew workers remove debris after a house exploded in a Bel Air, Md. neighborhood, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Crew workers remove debris after a house exploded in the Bel Air, Md. neighborhood on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Crew workers remove debris after a house exploded in Bel Air, Md. neighborhood, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Crew workers remove the debris after a house exploded in Bel Air, Md. neighborhood on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Crew workers remove the debris after a house exploded in Bel Air, Md. neighborhood on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

A police officer stands near a police line where a house exploded in Bel Air, Md. neighborhood on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Crew workers remove debris after a house exploded in Bel Air, Md. neighborhood on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Crew workers remove the debris after a house exploded in Bel Air, Md. neighborhood on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

In this photo provided by Joppa Magnolia Volunteer Fire Company, debris is seen in a street after an apparent house explosion in Harford County, Maryland, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. Fire officials say at least one person has died after an apparent explosion leveled a house in a town northeast of Baltimore. (Joppa Magnolia Volunteer Fire Company via AP)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday an American activist killed in the West Bank last week was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers, drawing a strong rebuke from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the activist's family.

Israel said a criminal investigation has been launched into the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who was taking part in a demonstration against settlements. Doctors who treated Eygi, who also held Turkish citizenship, said she was shot in the head.

Blinken condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified” killing when asked about the Israeli inquiry at a news conference in London. “No one should be shot while attending a protest,” he said. “The Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank.”

Eygi's family in the U.S. released a statement saying “we are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional. The disregard shown for human life in the inquiry is appalling.”

During Friday's demonstration, clashes broke out between Palestinians throwing stones and Israeli troops firing tear gas and ammunition, according to Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting of Eygi.

Pollak said the violence had subsided about a half hour before Eygi was shot, after protesters and activists had withdrawn several hundred meters (yards) away from the site of the demonstration. Pollak said he saw two Israeli soldiers mount the roof of a nearby home, train a gun in the group’s direction and fire, with one bullet hitting Eygi.

Israel said its inquiry into Eygi’s killing “found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by (Israeli army) fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.” It expressed its “deepest regret” at her death.

International Solidarity Movement, the activist group Egyi was volunteering with, said it “entirely rejects” the Israeli statement and that the “shot was aimed directly at her.”

The killing came amid a surge of violence in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and heavier military crackdowns on Palestinian protests.

Israel says it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians and holds them accountable. It says soldiers often have to make split-second decisions while operating in areas where militants hide among civilians. But human rights groups say soldiers are very rarely prosecuted, and even in the most shocking cases — and those captured on video — they often get relatively light sentences.

The Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession for Eygi in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Turkish authorities said they are working on repatriating her body to Turkey for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, as per her family’s wishes.

Eygi's uncle said in an interview with the Turkish TV channel HaberTurk that she kept her visit to the West Bank secret from at least some of her family members. She said she was traveling to Jordan to help Palestinians there, he said.

"She hid the fact that she was going to Palestine. She blocked us from her social media posts so that we would not see them,” Yilmaz Eygi said.

The deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp.

Several independent investigations and reporting by The Associated Press determined that Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire. Months later, the military said there was a “high probability” one of its soldiers had mistakenly killed her but that no one would be punished.

In January 2022, Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American, died of a heart attack after Israeli troops at a checkpoint dragged him from his car and made him lie facedown, bound, temporarily gagged and blindfolded. The military ruled out criminal charges and said it was reprimanding one commander and removing two others from leadership roles for two years.

The U.S. had planned to sanction a military unit linked to abuses of Palestinians in the West Bank but ended up dropping the plan.

The deaths of Palestinians who do not have dual nationality rarely receive the same scrutiny.

Human rights groups say Israel military investigations into Palestinians' deaths reflect a pattern of impunity. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli watchdog, became so frustrated that in 2016 it halted its decades-long practice of assisting investigations and called them a “whitewash.”

Last year, an Israeli court acquitted a member of the paramilitary Border Police charged with reckless manslaughter in the deadly shooting of 32-year-old Eyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City in 2020. The case had drawn comparisons to the police killing of George Floyd in the United States.

In 2017, Israeli soldier Elor Azaria was convicted for manslaughter and served nine months after he killed a wounded, incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the West Bank city of Hebron. The combat medic was caught on video fatally shooting Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, who was lying motionless on the ground.

That case deeply divided Israelis, with the military saying Azaria had clearly violated its code of ethics, while many Israelis — particularly on the nationalist right — defended his actions and accused military brass of second-guessing a soldier operating in dangerous conditions.

Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s Gaza coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

This undated family photo provided by the International Solidarity Movement on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, shows Aysenur Ezgi Eygi of Seattle. (Courtesy of the Eygi family/International Solidarity Movement via AP)

ADDS WITNESS SAYS: Two fellow activists of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who a witness says was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers while participating in an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank, carry posters with her name and photo during Eygi's funeral procession in the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)