▲ Palestinian children collect materials from destroyed residential buildings near the Nuseirat refugee camp that they can reuse.Photo Xinhua
AP, Europa Press, AFP and Reuters
The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 22, 2024, p. 26
Deir Al Balah, Israel yesterday continued its bombings in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, which is home to thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes and where the already precarious humanitarian conditions are compounded by the threat of the polio virus, traces of which were found in wastewater samples.
The World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that, so far, no one has been treated for symptoms caused by the infection, but The discovery is extremely worryingsaid its spokesman, Christian Lindmeier.
Polio, currently endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that attacks the spinal cord and can cause irreversible paralysis.
The Israeli army has launched a polio vaccination campaign for its soldiers and said it is also working to bring vaccines to the population of the Palestinian territory.
The most recent attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the center of the strip were against the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps, where nine people were killed, including two minors. The Turkish media Hurriyet The Palestinian Authority said journalist Moatasem Ghorab and four members of his family, including two young girls, were among the dead. With Ghorab, the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since 7 October has risen to 162.
In the south of the country, the targets were in the towns of Khan Yunis and Rafah, where tanks advanced over the course of two days. At least six people were killed in the Abasan shelter, including two young girls, while fierce fighting between Hamas militants and Israeli forces took place in Rafah, according to reports collected by journalists.
Men and women cried and hugged the small bodies wrapped in white blankets. Unknown baby, five months oldhad a body written on it.
The armed wings of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas groups said fighters engaged the IDF with anti-tank rockets and mortar shells.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said its soldiers killed a group of fighters and destroyed ammunition, tunnel shafts and infrastructure in Tel al-Sultan, in the eastern part of the city.
The Gazan Ministry of Health reported that the death toll is 38,983 and 89,727 wounded, counting civilians and combatants since the war began. In the past 24 hours, 64 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.
There are victims under the rubble and on the roadsauthorities reported, Ambulance and civil defense teams cannot reach themThey said that around 10,000 people are missing, so the death toll could be much higher than officially announced.
In the reoccupied West Bank, several foreigners supporting the Palestinian cause were attacked and injured yesterday by Israeli settlers on the agricultural lands of Qusra, where they were accompanying Palestinians in their agricultural work.
The volunteers, who were brought to the hospital for treatment, often accompany Palestinians in olive groves near Israeli settlements, as they are vulnerable in the occupied territories, where acts of violence are increasingly frequent.
Today (Sunday), a number of masked Israeli civilians attacked a group of foreigners, thinking they were planting trees in the vicinity of Qusra.the Tel Aviv army reported.
They came with huge sticks and started beating us.said an American woman who introduced herself under the nickname Vivi, and reported an unjustified attack. They were armed with metal pipes and wooden sticks and were looking for a fight.added David Hummel, a German from the International Solidarity Movement.
Hani Odeh, mayor of Qusra, added that militants accompanied farmers in fields recently burned by settlers.