A man tries to clear debris while a woman watches after several days of Israeli attacks in Jenin, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, September 6, 2024. File | Photo credit: Reuters
Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip killed more than a dozen people overnight into Saturday (September 7, 2024) morning, hospital and local officials said, while health workers were carrying out the second phase of an urgent polio vaccination campaign designed to prevent a massive outbreak in the region.
The vaccination campaign kicked off as health officials confirmed the first polio case in the Palestinian territory in 25 years, in a 10-month-old child whose leg is now paralysed. The nine-day campaign run by the UN health agency and its partners began last Sunday (September 1, 2024) in central Gaza and aims to vaccinate 640,000 children under the age of 10, an ambitious effort during a devastating war that has destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system and much of its infrastructure.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the second phase of vaccination in the southern part of the Strip was on its final day on Saturday (September 7, 2024) before it moves north and ends on Monday (September 9, 2024). The ministry has identified dozens of locations in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah where people can go with their children to get vaccinated.
Meanwhile, Israel continued its military operation. Al-Awda Hospital in the urban refugee camp of Nusserat in central Gaza said it had received the bodies of nine people killed in two separate airstrikes. The hospital said four people were killed and at least 10 injured in an attack on a residential building on Saturday (September 7, 2024) morning, while five others were killed in an attack on a house in the western part of Nusserat.
In addition, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, central Gaza’s main hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah, said a woman and her two children were killed in another attack on a house in the nearby urban refugee camp of Bureij on Saturday (September 7, 2024) morning. In the northern part of the Gaza Strip, an air strike on a school that serves as a shelter for displaced people in the city of Jabalia killed at least four people and wounded nearly two dozen others, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense Authority, which operates under the territory’s Hamas-run government.
The war began when Hamas and other militants launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Hamas is believed to still be holding more than 100 hostages. Israeli officials estimate that about a third of them have been killed.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliatory strikes, according to the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. More than 94,000 people have been injured since the war began, the ministry reports.
Violence has also escalated in the occupied West Bank, where a military operation in the city of Jenin for more than a week left dozens dead and widespread destruction.
A 13-year-old girl and an American protester were shot dead in separate incidents on the West Coast on Friday (September 6, 2024).
Two Palestinian doctors said Ayşenur Ezgi Egi, 26, of Seattle, who also holds Turkish nationality, died of a gunshot wound to the head on Friday (September 6, 2024). Witnesses to the shooting said she posed no threat to Israeli forces and was shot during a calm period following clashes in the afternoon.
The White House has said it was “deeply troubled” by the killing and has asked Israel to investigate. The Israeli military said it was investigating reports that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at “inciters of violent activity” in the area of protests.
In addition, Palestinian health officials said Israeli firing killed Bana Labum, a 13-year-old girl, in the West Bank village of Qariout, south of Nablus on Friday (September 6, 2024).
The Israeli military said on Saturday (September 7, 2024) that “initial investigations indicate” that security forces were deployed to disperse a riot between Palestinian and Israeli civilians, which “included mutual stone-throwing.” The army said security forces had fired bullets in the air.
“A Palestinian girl was reported dead after being shot in the area. The incident is being reviewed,” the army said.
More than 500,000 Israeli migrants live in the West Bank, an area captured by Israel in 1967. According to Palestinian health officials, more than 690 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s increased raids, attacks on Israelis by Palestinian militants and attacks on Palestinians by Israeli migrants since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.
Israel is under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting on a demand that has emerged as a major sticking point in the talks – continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip along Gaza’s border with Egypt where Israel claims Hamas smuggles weapons into Gaza. Egypt and Hamas deny this.
Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out months-long talks by making new demands, including permanent Israeli control of the Philadelphia Corridor and another corridor through Gaza.
Hamas has offered to release all hostages in exchange for an end to the fighting, a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-level militants – broadly the conditions sought under a framework for a deal presented by US President Joe Biden in July.
Published – September 07, 2024 08:33 PM IST