PRAGUE (AP) — The main opposition party dominated Czech regional elections and was ahead in the first round of voting for Parliament’s upper house, according to results released Saturday.
With almost all the votes counted, the ANO (YES) movement led by former populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis won 10 of the 13 regions contested in the election on Friday and Saturday, the Czech Statistics Office said.
The result reflected a stable support for ANO, which also won 10 regions in 2020 and nine in 2016, and a boost for Babis ahead of next year's general election.
ANO also has the most candidates advancing to the runoffs for 27 seats in the 81-seat Senate. The top two finishers in each district will face each other in a head-to-head vote next weekend.
With ballots from 99% of stations counted, ANO had 19 candidates advancing to the runoffs.
The Czech Statistics Office said five candidates reached the 50% threshold to win seats outright, leaving 22 seats to be decided in runoffs next week between the top two finishers in each race.
The outright winners included two candidates from ANO, one from the Christian Democrats, a member of the governing five-party coalition, an independent representing the coalition and an opposition Social Democrat.
Government lawmakers currently have a clear majority in the Senate.
Parliament’s lower house is more powerful, but the Senate plays an important role in passing constitutional amendments and approving Constitutional Court judges.
The elections took place in the wake of massive floods that hit Central Europe in recent days, claiming at least 24 lives, five of them in the Czech Republic.
The Czech opposition wins big in the regional election and leads in the Senate vote
The Czech opposition wins big in the regional election and leads in the Senate vote
Firefighters set up an improvised polling station for a two-day vote for one-third of the seats in Parliament’s upper house, the Senate, and to select their representatives in regional elections, in Široká Niva, Czech Republic, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (Jaroslav Ozana/CTK via AP)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli strike on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday killed at least 22 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, while the Israeli army said that it targeted a Hamas command center in what used to be a school.
Another 30 were wounded in the strike on the school in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, the ministry said in a statement. Most of the casualties were women and children, it said. It wasn't immediately clear which hospital the dead and injured were taken to.
Dozens of people including children dug through the rubble of the building — its ceilings caved in, walls knocked out and a mess of wires and metal rods visible. Outside, others gathered around shrouded bodies. Some covered their faces as they wept for relatives killed in the strike.
“A missile, a missile from the plane hit us, and another missile,” said Ferial Deloul, who is displaced. “We saw the whole world covered with smoke and stones and we saw people and children cut up. … What should we do? What is our fault for this to happen to us?”
The Israeli army said earlier Saturday that it struck Hamas' “command and control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served” as a school. It said steps were taken to limit harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.
Also on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry said five of its workers were killed and five others wounded by Israeli fire that struck the ministry’s warehouses in the southern Musbah area.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli army has struck several schools, packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. The conflict has left 90% of Palestinians in Gaza displaced, according to figures from the United Nations.
The military has continually accused Hamas of operating from within civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, U.N. facilities and hospitals. The contesting narratives over the use of schools and hospitals go to the heart of the nearly yearlong conflict.
Earlier this month, an Israeli strike hit a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing 14, according to Palestinian medical officials. The Israeli military said that it was targeting Hamas militants planning attacks from inside the school.
In July, Israeli airstrikes hit a girls' school in Deir al-Balah, killing at least 30 people sheltering inside. Israel’s military said that it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against its troops and store “large quantities of weapons.”
The war began when Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. They abducted another 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between fighters and civilians.
Tensions soared in the region on Friday after an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb in Lebanon killed dozens of people, including civilians and Ibrahim Akil, who was in charge of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force. Also killed was Ahmed Wahbi, another senior commander in the group’s military wing.
The strike came hours after Hezbollah launched one of its most intense bombardments of northern Israel in nearly a year of fighting. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of the rockets.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept rockets that were launched from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
