England midfielder Conor Gallagher finally completed his move to Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, ending a weeks-long saga that required a move by Joao Felix in the opposite direction to facilitate the deal.
Gallagher joined Atletico for a reported 36 million pounds ($47 million) on a five-year deal. Hours later, Chelsea announced the signing of Felix, the Portugal forward, for a reported 45 million pounds ($59 million).
Chelsea wanted to sell Gallagher, an academy product and the team's vice-captain last season, to help the club meet the Premier League's financial requirements that are being more strictly applied in recent seasons.
Chelsea and Atletico reached an agreement on his transfer but it was in jeopardy last week, reportedly because of the collapse of a deal that would have seen Atletico striker Samu Omorodion move in the opposite direction.
That meant Gallagher had to return to Chelsea and train alone but a solution was reached, with Felix instead making the switch from Atletico to Chelsea.
Felix spent the second half of the 2022-23 season on loan at Chelsea, having previously become the third most expensive player of all time when Atletico triggered the 126 million euro (around $140 million) buyout clause in his contract in 2019 to sign him from Benfica.
“I’m really happy to be back at Chelsea and I can’t wait to get started,” he said. "I can see some familiar faces from the last time I was here, which is always nice.
“I loved my time here before and I told my friends and family that I’d love to return to the Premier League one day. To do that with Chelsea is a great feeling and I’m excited to be back.”
Felix was on loan at Barcelona last season.
Gallagher played for England at the recent European Championship and was one of Chelsea's best players last season. He has played 95 times for a club he joined as a 6-year-old, scoring 10 goals in total.
It continues a frenzied summer of transfer activity for Chelsea, which continues to overhaul its squad under its American owners.
Ten players have been signed in this transfer window at a cost of more than $250 million. Before that, Chelsea spent $280 million in the summer of 2022, $350 million in January 2023 and more than $400 million in the offseason of that year.
The arrival of Felix comes a week after Pedro Neto, another player who can fit in anywhere across the front three, joined from Wolverhampton.
Chelsea said Wednesday that Neto has taken the No. 7 jersey previously owned by Raheem Sterling, a winger who looks surplus to requirements at the club now. Sterling didn't even make the bench in the 2-0 loss to Manchester City on Sunday, which was Chelsea's opening match of the Premier League season.
“I’m not saying Raheem is not a good player,” Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said. “But I prefer different kind of wingers.
“I just tried to be honest. I spoke with Raheem before City. I said he’s going to struggle to get minutes with us."
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Chelsea's Conor Gallagher reacts during the English Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Chelsea at Emirates Stadium in London, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
The U.S. secretary of state said Thursday the United States will continue to press Israel to do more to spare humanitarian sites in the Gaza Strip, a day after an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school complex sheltering displaced Palestinians killed 14 people there, including six U.N. staffers.
Meanwhile, Turkey announced its own probe into the death of a Turkish-American activist who was shot and killed by Israeli forces last week while protesting settlements in the occupied West Bank. And a Syrian pro-government media outlet and an opposition war monitor said an Israeli strike hit a car in southern Syria on Thursday, killing two people.
The deaths at the U.N. school on Wednesday came amid a spate of Israeli airstrikes across Gaza that killed at least 34 Palestinians, according to local officials. Among those killed were 19 women and children, they said.
The Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. They abducted another 250 and are still holding around 100. Around a third of them are believed to be dead.
Here's the latest:
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The World Health Organization says medical teams in Gaza are wrapping up the final day of an emergency polio vaccination campaign following the discovery of the territory’s first-known case of the illness in more than 25 years.
Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the U.N. health agency’s representative, told reporters in a news conference from Gaza that the health workers had reached more than an estimated 552,000 children under the age of 5. They used a new oral polio vaccine targeting the specific type of polio seen in Gaza, which is a mutated strain that originated in an older oral vaccine.
Peeperkorn said WHO and its partners have yet to do a final analysis of how many children were actually covered, but added that it was more than expected. On Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said more than half a million Gaza children have been vaccinated.
“We are quite confident that we reached an enormous amount of children in this short time,” Peeperkorn said, referring to the four-day vaccination campaign. He said authorities were aiming to cover more than 90% of children in this immunization round and in the second one, to be held next month.
WARSAW — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States will continue to urge Israel to do more to spare humanitarian sites in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school complex sheltering displaced Palestinians killed six U.N. staffers.
When asked on Thursday at a news conference in the Polish capital about Israel’s bombing of the school complex in central Gaza the day before, Blinken told reporters that “we need to see humanitarian sites protected.”
“That’s something we continue to raise with Israel,” he said.
Wednesday's strike on the U.N.-supported al-Jaouni Preparatory Boys School in Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, hospital officials said. Among those killed were six staffers from the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, known as UNRWA, the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza.
UNRWA described the strike as the deadliest single incident for its staff members. Among those killed at the school, it said, were the manager of the shelter and others working to help the thousands of displaced people taking refuge there, including teachers.
The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said at least 220 UNRWA staffers have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s military offensive began in response to Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school.
Blinken blamed Hamas for continuing to hide its fighters among civilians and said the bombing “underscores the urgency" of reaching a cease-fire in the embattled territory.
CAIRO — The World Health Organization says the United Arab Emirates has evacuated nearly 100 critically wounded and sick Palestinians from Gaza, including cancer patients, for medical treatment in the Gulf Arab state.
The U.N. health agency said on Thursday that a total of 252 Palestinians from Gaza, including 97 patients and their relatives, flew the previous day to Abu Dhabi in the UAE from the Ramon airport in Israel.
It was the biggest exit of Palestinian medical patients in Gaza through Israel since the war began.
WHO said that the patients, among them 45 children and 52 adults, were suffering from severe injuries or critical conditions such as brain tumors and amputations. It was the second such evacuation flight that the UAE has coordinated to provide advanced medical care to Palestinians.
With few exceptions, Israel has barred Gaza’s Palestinians from entering Israel throughout the war.
Gaza has been completely sealed off since May, when Israeli forces captured the Gaza side of the border with Egypt, including the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the coastal strip, leading to its closure.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli body that accredits journalists said on Thursday that it will revoke the press cards of Al-Jazeera reporters working in the country.
The move comes after Israel shut down the Qatar-based broadcaster’s local operations in May. Authorities already prevent Al-Jazeera broadcasts and block its websites.
Israel accuses Al-Jazeera of incitement and threatening national security over its coverage of the war in Gaza.
Nitzan Chen, the director of the Government Press Office, said “the use of GPO cards in the course of the journalists’ work could in itself jeopardize state security at this time of military emergency.”
Al-Jazeera denies the allegations and has accused Israel of trying to silence its coverage.
With several correspondents reporting from inside Gaza, the channel has provided round-the-clock coverage of the war since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that ignited it. Its coverage has focused on civilian casualties in Gaza, and it often airs Hamas videos and statements in their entirety.
Israeli strikes have killed four Al-Jazeera reporters since the start of the war. The government office said the revocation of the press cards would be subject to a hearing. It will apply to Al-Jazeera journalists and broadcasters but not producers or photographers. Turkey launches its own probe into the killing of Turkish-American activist in the West Bank
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s justice minister says his country is investigating the death of a Turkish-American activist shot and killed by Israeli forces last week while protesting settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The 26-year-old activist from Seattle was taking part in a demonstration against settlements in the Palestinian territory when she was fatally shot last Friday. Israel is investigating the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and its military later said she was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by soldiers.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on Thursday that the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office was leading the Turkish probe. He also called on U.N. agencies, including the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to investigate.
Tunc said Turkey would present its findings to a U.N. court overseeing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa over the war in Gaza.
“We will take every judicial step for our martyred daughter, Aysenur,” Tunc said.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Eygi’s body was likely to be brought to Turkey on Friday. Her burial is scheduled to take place in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, in western Turkey, in line with her family’s wishes.
BEIRUT — A Syrian pro-government radio and a war-monitoring group say an Israeli strike hit a car in southern Syria, killing two people. The Sham FM didn’t give further details on the Thursday morning strike on the village of Khan Arnabeh, near Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, also reported that two people were killed in the airstrike, without giving further details.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has carried out such airstrikes over the past months on the edge of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 Mideast war and annexed in 1981. Israel says it is targeting Iran-linked militants.
Israel has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in Syria, where thousands of Iran-backed fighters are deployed. Syria is a key route for Iran to send weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.
People inspect the destruction following an Israeli forces raid in Tulkarem, West Bank, on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
An Israeli soldier aims her rifle during an army raid in Tubas, West Bank, on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
An Israeli tank overlooks the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
Palestinian flags are seen during a vigil on Alki Beach for Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle, who was killed recently in the West Bank, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Ezgi is spelled in candles on the sand during a vigil on Alki Beach for Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle, who was killed recently in the West Bank, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)
