Israel's latest airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 15 including children

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Israel's latest airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 15 including children

2024-07-22 02:38 Last Updated At：02:40

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 15 people, including women and children overnight in Gaza, according to hospital officials and a body count by an Associated Press journalist on Sunday.

The latest strikes occurred as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to leave Monday for the United States, where he is expected to meet with President Joe Biden and address Congress to make his case for the nine-month war against Hamas while cease-fire negotiations continue. A team will be sent to continue talks on Thursday, Netanyahu's office said.

The already precarious humanitarian conditions inside besieged Gaza have worsened with the discovery of the polio virus as water and sanitation services have suffered for the territory’s population of 2.3 million, most of it displaced. Traces of the virus were found in sewage samples in Gaza. The World Health Organization has said no one has been treated for symptoms caused by the infection.

Israel’s military said that soldiers would be vaccinated, and it would work with organizations to bring in vaccines for Palestinians.

Israel’s latest airstrikes were in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where nine people, including two children, were killed, and the southern city of Khan Younis, where at least six people were killed, including two girls. Men and women wept and embraced the small bodies in white shrouds.

“Unknown body of five-month baby” was written on one.

Smoke also rose from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 38,900 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war began with an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 120 remain held, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and secure the return of the remaining hostages. Families of hostages and thousands of other Israelis have rallied in weekly demonstrations, urging the prime minister to reach a cease-fire deal that would bring loved ones home.

Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased deal that would stop the fighting and free the hostages.

Concerns about a wider regional conflict continue. Israel on Saturday struck the port of Hodeida in Yemen in the first known Israeli strikes there since the war in Gaza began. The strikes, in response to a deadly Houthi drone strike in Tel Aviv, threatened to open a new front as Israel battles Iranian proxies in the region.

On Sunday, the Israeli military said that it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen as the Houthis vowed “impactful strikes.”

Proxies also include Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon. On Sunday, Lebanon's military said two of its soldiers were wounded after an Israeli strike hit a watchtower on the outskirts of the border town of Alma al-Shaab. Earlier Sunday, Israel's military said it struck multiple areas in southern Lebanon after a number of drones were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory. It said hits were identified in the areas of Hanita and Ya’ara in northern Israel but no injuries were reported.

Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.

Following death of Hamas leader, Harris says it's 'time for the day after to begin' in Gaza

2024-10-18 10:38 Last Updated At：10:40

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Kamala Harris said Thursday that Israel's killing of Hamas' top leader offers "an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza," talking plainly about next steps even as the pro-Palestinian demonstrators who gathered outside her campaign event underscored the complicated politics at play.

The Democratic presidential nominee said the war “must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

“It is time for the day after to begin,” she said, speaking from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee just moments after the White House released President Joe Biden's statement on the death of Yahya Sinwar. Israeli officials said Sinwar was killed in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza.

The administration's response to the killing of a chief architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel was carefully choreographed, leaving room for Harris to emphasize the push to end the war as she balances her loyalty to Biden.

With the presidential race at razor-thin margins and the election just a few weeks away, the vice president is seeking to solidify support in battleground states and shore up left flank voters who want to see an immediate end to the bloody conflict, some of whom threaten not to vote for her.

The Biden administration’s support for Israel has complicated her campaign push in metro Detroit, especially in Dearborn, an area home to the nation’s largest Arab American community. The death earlier this month of a Dearborn resident killed in south Lebanon ignited more anger in the traditionally Democratic area.

Speaking Thursday in Flint, Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she was hopeful for an end to the violence.

“Have the hostages returned and have a solution for long-term peace in the region. That’s everything that I think is so important. And, you know, any chance that we can do that, I think would be welcomed by so many people,” she said.

At Harris' next stop in Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, her remarks focused on Trump and his falsehoods around the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump is “increasingly unstable and unhinged, and will stop at nothing to claim unchecked power for himself," she said.

William Schauberger, a 24-year-old political science major, said ahead of Harris’ rally that he wasn’t optimistic about prospects for resolving the conflict in the Middle East regardless of the election results. He deemed the loss of life in Gaza “straight up genocide” and predicted “neither party will do anything about it.”

Harris has not proposed any policy shifts on Israel, and her remarks largely echoed Biden's statement. But she has, of late, faced increasing pressure to articulate how she would govern differently from Biden.

While Biden’s favorability ratings remain underwater, some of the biggest pieces of his legislative agenda, from infrastructure to lowering the costs of some prescription drugs, are popular, and signaling any daylight with the president on foreign policy at a time of global crises could be seen as reckless.

Biden's written statement on Sinwar's death — released as he was traveling to Germany for a visit with Chancellor Olaf Scholz — focused on how U.S. intelligence helped the Israelis pursue Hamas leadership and noted that Israel had every right to “eliminate the leadership and military structure of Hamas.”

“Today proves once again that no terrorists anywhere in the world can escape justice, no matter how long it takes,” Biden said.

He said he would speak with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “congratulate them, to discuss the pathway for bringing the hostages home to their families and for ending this war once and for all, which has caused so much devastation to innocent people.”

Karnowski reported from La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Long from Washington. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Milwaukee and Todd Richmond in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Joey Cappelletti in Flint, Michigan, contributed to this report.