Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya smashes world record by nearly 2 minutes at Chicago Marathon

CHICAGO (AP) — Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya smashed the world record by nearly two minutes at the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, winning in 2:09:56.

The 30-year-old Chepngetich broke the world record set by Tigist Assefa of Ethiopia in 2:11:53 at the 2023 Berlin Marathon. Sutume Asefa Kebede of Ethiopia finished second in 2:17:32.

“I feel so great. I’m very proud of myself," Chepngetich said. “This is my dream. I fought a lot, thinking about the world record.”

Chepngetich became the first woman to break 2:10 in the marathon. She also won the Chicago Marathon in 2021 and 2022 and finished runner-up last year.

John Korir of Kenya won the men’s race in 2:02:44, besting Huseydin Mohamed Esa of Ethiopia, who finished in 2:04:39.

Korir and Chepngetich ran in honor of the late Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, who broke the world record by 34 seconds, finishing in 2:00:35, at the 2023 Chicago Marathon.

“The world record has come back to Kenya,” Chepngetich said. "I dedicate this world record to Kelvin Kiptum.”

Police said the 24-year-old Kiptum and his coach, Gervais Hakizimana, died in a car accident in February after hitting a tree near a training area in Kaptagat, Kenya.

Organizers held a moment of silence for Kiptum before the race and offered the nearly 50,000 runners a memorial sticker to add to their bibs. The 26.2-mile race started and ended in Grant Park.

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Ruth Chepngetich, from Kenya, reacts after crossing the finish line of the Chicago Marathon to win the women's professional division and break the women's marathon world record in Grant Park on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune via AP)

Ruth Chepngetich, from Kenya, runs with the Kenyan flag after crossing the finish line of the Chicago Marathon to win the women's professional division and break the women's marathon world record in Grant Park, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune via AP)

Ruth Chepngetich, from Kenya, lowers her head while wearing the Kenyan flag after crossing the finish line of the Chicago Marathon to win the women's professional division and break the women's marathon world record in Grant Park on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune via AP)

Ruth Chepngetich, from Kenya, crosses the finish line of the Chicago Marathon to win the women's professional division and break the women's marathon world record in Grant Park on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune via AP)

Runners head north on Columbus Avenue in Grant Park to start the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune via AP)

Runners cross the LaSalle Street bridge during the Chicago Marathon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune via AP)

Runners cross the LaSalle Street bridge during the Chicago Marathon Sunday Oct. 13, 2024, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez//Chicago Tribune via AP)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli rescue services said almost 40 people were wounded in a drone strike in the central city of Binyamina on Sunday, three of them critically. The Hezbollah militant group was blamed for one of the most serious strikes to land in Israel in a year of war.

Israel’s advanced air-defense systems mean that it's rare for so many people to be hurt by drones or missiles. Israeli media reported that two drones were launched from Lebanon, and Israel's military said one was intercepted.

It was not immediately clear who was hurt, military or civilians, or what was hit.

It was the second time in two days that a drone has struck in Israel. On Saturday, during the Israeli holiday of Yom Kippur, a drone struck in a suburb of Tel Aviv, causing damage but no injuries.

The strike came on the same day that the United States announced it would send a new air-defense system to Israel to help bolster its protection against missiles.

Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both Iran-backed militant groups — and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when. Iran has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.

A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza nearly every day. One strike late Saturday hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing the parents and their six children, ages 8 to 23, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies there.

“They were safe, while he was sleeping, and he and all his children died,” said the man's brother, Mohammad Abu Ghali. Women stroked the body bags, in tears.

Israel's military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas.

International criticism is growing after Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation in Lebanon. The military says Hezbollah operates in the vicinity of the peacekeepers, without providing evidence.

The peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL said Israeli tanks forcibly entered the gates of one of its positions early Sunday and destroyed the main gate, and later fired smoke rounds near peacekeepers in that location, causing skin irritation. UNIFIL said the incident was a “further flagrant violation of international law.”

Israeli strikes have wounded five peacekeepers in recent days.

Israel’s military said a tank trying to evacuate wounded soldiers backed into a U.N. post while under fire. It said a smoke screen was used to provide cover.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani asserted that Israel has tried to maintain constant contact with UNIFIL and that any instance of U.N. forces being harmed will be investigated at “the highest level.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah.

“We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video addressed to the U.N. secretary-general, who has been banned from entering Israel.

Israel has long accused the United Nations of being biased against it, and relations have plunged further since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has accused the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees of being infiltrated by Hamas, allegations the agency denies.

In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, and other areas.

Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war's opening weeks. Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there.

The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.

The military confirmed that hospitals were included in evacuation orders but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers.

Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” remain uncollected from the streets and under rubble.

“We are unable to reach them,” he told the AP, saying dogs are eating some remains.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, a third believed to be dead.

Israel's bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. The ministry doesn't distinguish between militants or civilians, but says women and children make up over half the deaths. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.

Israeli airstrikes destroyed an Ottoman-era market in Lebanon's southern city of Nabatiyeh overnight, killing at least one person and wounding four more. Lebanon's Civil Defense said it battled fires in 12 residential buildings and 40 shops in the market, which dates back to 1910.

“Our livelihoods have all been leveled,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose shop was destroyed.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, without elaborating.

Rescuers searched pancaked buildings as Israeli drones buzzed overhead. Nabatiyeh was one of dozens of communities across southern Lebanon warned by Israel to evacuate.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah, allied with Hamas, began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict dramatically escalated in September with Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground operation earlier this month.

Separately, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday, when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances.

The Red Cross said the operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side.

The Israeli military said it continued to target Hezbollah in Lebanon on Sunday, and reported rocket fire on northern Israel throughout the day, with at least 115 fired from Lebanon. It also said two soldiers were severely injured in a barrage of anti-tank missiles in Lebanon.

At least 2,255 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,400 people since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 54 people have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

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

An Israeli Apache helicopter flies past the sun, near the Israeli-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A man speaks on the phone in a public bomb shelter to stay safe from rockets fired from Lebanon in Acre, northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A boy sits in a public bomb shelter to be safe from rockets fired from Lebanon in Acre, northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

An Israeli Apache helicopter fires a missile towards southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Workers unload Saudi medical aid boxes arriving at Beirut International airport, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Workers unload Saudi medical aid boxes arriving at Beirut International airport, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Workers unload Saudi medical aid boxes arriving at Beirut International airport, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Workers unload Saudi medical aid boxes arriving at the Beirut International airport, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Hezbollah rescue workers search for victims amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings at a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A Hezbollah rescue worker searches for victims amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings at a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Destroyed shops and a mosque are seen on a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Destroyed shops are seen in front of a Hezbollah fighter statue on a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in NAbatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A Hezbollah firefighter hoses down on burned and destroyed shops at a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Hezbollah rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove the rubble of destroyed buildings on a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A man walks in front of destroyed buildings on a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Lebanese citizens watch the destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Hezbollah rescue workers stand on the rubble of destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in NAbatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A Hezbollah rescue worker, left, and a Lebanese Civil Defence worker, right, stand on the rubble of destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in NAbatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Hezbollah rescue workers search for victims on the rubble of destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A man walks amid destroyed buildings at a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Destroyed buildings at a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, are seen in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Lebanese man Ahmad Fakih checks his destroyed coffeeshop at a commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Hezbollah rescue workers search for victims amid the rubble of destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Hezbollah rescue workers search for victims on a destroyed building at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Hezbollah rescue workers search for victims on the rubble of destroyed buildings at commercial street that was hit Saturday night by Israeli airstrikes, in NAbatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)