Sunday, August 18, 2024

ZIONIST IMPERIALISM DECLARES WAR 

Palestinians say two dead in Israel West Bank drone strike

Nablus (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Palestinian officials said two people were killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank on Saturday that the Israeli military said targeted a "terrorist cell" in the Jenin area.

Issued on: 17/08/2024 - 
First responders gather around a car hit by an Israeli drone strike in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin 
© MOHAMMAD MANSOUR / AFP

"Two bodies were transferred to Jenin public hospital after the occupiers (Israeli forces) bombed a car in the centre of the city," the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the strike was carried out by an "Israeli drone".

The military said in a statement that it had carried out an "air strike on a terrorist cell in the Jenin area".

Video footage posted online showed a vehicle on fire in the middle of a street, while some images showed a crowd around a charred car, trying to open the doors.

"There are dead people in the car," shouts a man as a stretcher is brought by rescue workers.

The Palestinian health ministry said two people were killed in the strike, which the Israeli military said targeted a "terrorist cell"
 © MOHAMMAD MANSOUR / AFP

Since Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, violence has flared in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and separated geographically from Gaza by Israeli territory.

Since October 7, at least 635 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers, according to an AFP count based on Palestinian official figures.

During the same period, at least 18 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks, according to Israeli official figures.


Israeli strike on Gaza leaves 18 members of same family dead


Issued on: 17/08/2024 

Video by:|FRANCE 24

An Israeli airstrike Saturday killed at least 18 people, all from the same family, in the Gaza Strip. The attack came days after the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza announced the death toll surpassed 40,000 in the 10-month-old Israel-Hamas war, and just hours after officials from the United States, Egypt and Qatar wrapped up two days of cease-fire talks with a message of hope that a deal could be reached.


Gaza war elevates danger of a polio outbreak

By Mike Heuer

More than 640,000 children in Gaza need two doses of the polio vaccine to prevent an outbreak in the war-torn area, the United Nations says. 
File Photo by Marshall Wolfe/EPA-EFE

Aug. 17 (UPI) -- The war in Gaza has prevented Hamas from vaccinating local children against the disease as displaced Palestinians crowd into tent encampments 10 months after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

Wastewater tests in July revealed the existence of the virus that causes polio in Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah.

One person has tested positive for the disease that the Mayo Clinic said is an illness caused by a virus and primarily affects the nerves in the brain stem and spinal cord.

The World Health Organization said vaccinations eradicated polio in Gaza but the war has created a breeding ground for the virus that causes polio.

Related

U.S., Egypt, Qatar call on Israel and Hamas to resume cease-fire talks

"The impact on the health system, insecurity, inaccessibility, population displacement and shortages of medical supplies have contributed to reduced immunization rates," the U.N. agencies reported.

"Coupled with poor quality of water and destruction of sanitation, there is a heightened risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio and other outbreaks."

The WHO and UNICEF said the war needs to be paused to effectively vaccinate more than 640,000 children under 10 in Gaza. Each would need two doses of the polio vaccine type 2 to effectively protect children against polio.

Polio can cause partial paralysis and might lead to troubled breathing and death for those afflicted with it, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The United Nations said the vaccinations only could be done when the "safe and sustained access of protection of health workers" is assured.

U.N. agencies say only 16 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are "partially functional" while 48 out of 109 primary healthcare facilities are operational.

Before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, about 99% of Gazans were vaccinated against polio, but that percentage dropped to less than 90% during the first quarter of 2024, the WHO and UNICEF reported.

Polio cases decreased from 350,000 globally in 1988 to only 12 in 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Before polio vaccines became available in the 1950s, polio paralyzed more than 15,000 people each year in the United States.



Shock, grief as Israeli Lebanon strike kills 10 Syrians

Wadi al-Kafur (Lebanon) (AFP) – Sobbing relatives thronged Sheikh Ragheb Hospital Saturday after an Israeli air strike killed 10 Syrians, including two children, who had escaped war at home only to die in south Lebanon.


Issued on: 17/08/2024 - 
Relatives mourn over the bodies of four members of one family killed in the air strike © Mahmoud ZAYYAT / AFP


The early morning strike hit a building in the Wadi al-Kafur area of Nabatieh, killing the 10 including a mother and her two children, Lebanon's health ministry said.

Israel's military said aircraft had struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility.

At the hospital, relatives and friends of the victims expressed shock and anger at their sudden deaths, with women dressed in black weeping and wailing.

"Two of my sister's children were killed, another is in intensive care, and my other nephew is also in intensive care," said Hussein Al-Hussein, holding back tears as he listed relatives killed or wounded in the strike.

"They were sleeping, they didn't know anything. They were young labourers, and the Israeli air force targeted them."

The civilian toll from the strike was one of the highest in southern Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israel began exchanging near daily cross-border fire during the Gaza war.

The official Lebanese National News Agency reported that the casualties were Syrian refugees and labourers working at the factory that had been hit.
Inspecting the damage after the deadly air strike © Mahmoud ZAYYAT / AFP

Israel's military, on its Telegram channel, said its air force had struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility overnight "in the area of Nabatieh", about 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the border with Israel.

Omar al-Shahud, who works in the factory, said he was lucky to escape death because he did not live in the targeted annexe.

"Six of my relatives were killed. They had nothing to do with" the war, he said in an angry voice.

"They were workers who came here to earn a living."
In red shrouds

In a nearby room, crying relatives mourned a family of four: the factory building's concierge, his wife and two children aged four and one and a half, a family member told AFP.

Their bodies were shrouded in red cloth and adorned with flowers.

Lebanon has long heavily relied on Syrians for manual labour, especially in agriculture and construction.

A medic treats a man wounded in the air strike © Mahmoud ZAYYAT / AFP

Beirut says it currently hosts around two million Syrians -- with almost 785,000 registered with the United Nations.

Earlier in August, the health ministry said four Syrians were killed in an Israeli strike on the south.

The cross-border violence between Lebanon and Israel has killed 581 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 128 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

At the site of Saturday's strike, concrete rubble, metal wreckage and a few items of children's clothing and shoes was all that was left of the building that was targeted.

Standing beside his bombed-out factory, Hussein Tahmaz insisted the facility was "100 percent civilian".

He pointed to the wreckage of a red truck.

"Here we used to park and load our goods," Tahmaz said.

The building that was hit was an annexe to a two-storey factory warehouse where the concierge, his small family, and workers lived, mayor Khodr Saad told AFP.

"What did these children do to deserve this? They fled their country to escape death, only to find it here," he said.

© 2024 AFP

Israeli strike kills 10 Syrians in southern Lebanon, health ministry says



Issued on: 17/08/2024 


Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli air strike on Saturday in southern Lebanon killed 10 Syrian civilians, as the Israeli military reported hitting weapons stores of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. "The significance of this [attack] is that you're seeing a similar number of civilians and what that lets you know is there’s going to be an escalation and indeed that have been dozens of rockets that have been fired into Israel in the hour since we’ve learnt that news”, FRANCE 24’s Irris Makler said, reporting from Jerusalem.



© 2024 AFP

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