About 475 damaged ballots retrieved from burned drop box in Washington state, auditor says

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — About 475 damaged ballots were retrieved from a ballot box that was burned early Monday in southwest Washington, a county official said Tuesday.

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said workers on Wednesday will begin searching through the damaged ballots for voter information in order to contact them about getting a new ballot. He said officials believe that although damaged, the workers will be able to pull voter information from the ballots.

The damaged ballots are separate from an unknown number that were destroyed, Kimsey said.

Incendiary devices damaged and destroyed hundreds of ballots at a drop box in Vancouver, Washington, and damaged three ballots at a box in Portland, Oregon, in what federal, state and local officials have decried as an attack on democracy before a heated Election Day.

Authorities have said that enough material from the incendiary devices was recovered to link the two fires on Monday, as well as an Oct. 8 incident, when an incendiary device was placed at a different ballot drop box in Vancouver. No ballots were damaged in that incident.

Surveillance images captured a Volvo pulling up to the drop box in Portland just before security personnel nearby discovered a fire inside the box, Portland Police Bureau spokesperson Mike Benner has said. The incendiary devices were attached to the outside of the boxes.

The FBI is among the agencies investigating. U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman and Greg Austin, acting special agent in charge of the FBI Seattle field office, said in a joint statement Tuesday that they wanted to assure residents that they are working together to investigate the fires and will work to hold the person or people responsible “fully accountable.”

No arrests had been announced as of Tuesday evening.

The fire at the drop box in Portland was extinguished quickly thanks to a suppression system inside the box and a nearby security guard, police said.

Several hours later, another fire was discovered at a transit center drop box across the Columbia River in Vancouver. Vancouver is the biggest city in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, the site of what is expected to be one of the closest U.S. House races in the country, between first-term Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Republican challenger Joe Kent.

The ballot box in Vancouver also had a fire suppression system inside, but that failed to prevent hundreds of ballots from burning, according to Kimsey. He has urged voters who dropped their ballots in the transit center box after 11 a.m. Saturday to contact his office for a replacement ballot.

The office is increasing how frequently it collects ballots and changing collection times to the evening, Kimsey said, to keep the ballot boxes from remaining full of ballots overnight when similar crimes are considered more likely to occur.

Officials in at least two other counties in Washington — including in King County, where Seattle is located, — announced Tuesday that ballot drop boxes will be checked more often up until Election Day.

Election workers collect ballots from a newly placed ballot drop box outside the Multnomah County Elections Division office on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

A voter drops off a ballot for the 2024 election in a newly installed drop box at the Multnomah County Elections Division office on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Portland, Ore., after the pervious drop box was damaged. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

Police tape surrounds a ballot drop box damaged by a fire on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Vancouver, Wash. (Monika Spykerman/The Columbian via AP)

Police tape surrounds a ballot drop box damaged by a fire on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Vancouver, Wash. (Monika Spykerman/The Columbian via AP)

A damaged bin that was in a ballot drop box is displayed at the Multnomah County Elections Office on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

In this image made from a video provided by KGW8, authorities investigate smoke pouring out of a ballot box on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Vancouver, Wash. (KGW8 via AP)

In this image made from a video provided by KGW8, authorities investigate smoke pouring out of a ballot box on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Vancouver, Wash. (KGW8 via AP)

A damaged ballot drop box is displayed during a news conference at the Multnomah County Elections Division office on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

A person drops off their 2024 election ballot at a newly installed drop box outside the Multnomah County Elections Division office on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Two Israeli airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed at least 88 people, including dozens of women and children, health officials said, and the director of a hospital said life-threatening injuries were going untreated because a weekend raid by Israeli forces led to the detention of dozens of medics.

Israel has escalated airstrikes and waged a bigger ground operation in northern Gaza in recent weeks, saying it is focused on rooting out Hamas militants who have regrouped after more than a year of war. The intense fighting is raising alarm about the worsening humanitarian conditions for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in northern Gaza.

Concerns about not enough aid reaching Gaza were amplified Monday when Israeli lawmakers passed two laws to cut ties with the main U.N. agency distributing food, water and medicine, and to ban it from Israeli soil. Israel controls access to both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and it was unclear how the agency known as UNRWA would continue its work in either place.

“The humanitarian operation in Gaza, if that is unraveled, that is a disaster within a series of disasters and just doesn’t bear thinking about," said UNRWA spokesperson John Fowler. He said other U.N. agencies and international organizations distributing aid in Gaza rely on its logistics and thousands of workers.

In Lebanon, the militant group Hezbollah said Tuesday it has chosen Sheikh Naim Kassem to succeed longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month. Hezbollah, which has fired rockets into Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, vowed to continue with Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”

A short while later, eight Austrian soldiers serving in the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon were reported lightly injured in a midday missile strike.

The peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, said the rocket that struck its headquarters in Lebanon was “likely” fired by Hezbollah, and that it struck a vehicle workshop.

The Gaza Health Ministry's emergency service said at least 70 people were killed and 23 were missing in the first of Tuesday's strikes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. More than half of the victims were women and children, the ministry said. A mother and her five children — some of them adults — and a second mother with six children, were among those killed in the attack on a five-story building, according to the emergency service.

A second strike on Beit Lahiya on Tuesday evening killed at least 18 people, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count.

The nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was overwhelmed by a wave of wounded women and children, including many who needed urgent surgeries, according to its director, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya. The Israeli military raided the hospital over the weekend, detaining dozens of medics it said were Hamas militants.

“The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word," Safiya said, adding that the only remaining doctor at the hospital was a pediatrician. "The health care system has collapsed and needs an urgent international intervention.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller referred to the “horrifying incident” in Beit Lahiya in comments to reporters. He said Israel's yearlong campaign against Hamas has ensured it cannot repeat the type of attack that started the war in Gaza, but that “getting to here came at a great cost to civilians.”

The Israeli military said it was investigating the first Beit Lahiya strike; it did not immediately comment on the second.

Israel’s recent operations in northern Gaza, focused in and around the Jabaliya refugee camp, have killed hundreds of people and driven tens of thousands from their homes.

The Israeli military has repeatedly struck shelters for displaced people in recent months. It says it carries out precise strikes targeting Palestinian militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but the strikes often kill women and children.

On Tuesday, Israel said four more of its soldiers were killed in the fighting in northern Gaza, bringing the toll since the start of the operation to 16, including a colonel.

As the fighting raged, Hamas signaled it was ready to resume cease-fire negotiations, although its key demands — a permanent cease-fire and full withdrawal of the Israeli military — do not appear to have changed, and have been dismissed in the past by Israel. Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said on Tuesday the group has accepted mediators’ request to discuss “new proposals.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that its decision-making Shura Council elected Kassem, who had been Nasrallah's deputy leader for over three decades, as the new secretary-general.

Kassem, 71, a founding member of the militant group established following Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, had been serving as acting leader. He has given several televised speeches vowing that Hezbollah will fight on despite a string of setbacks.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel, drawing retaliation, after Hamas’ surprise attack out of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. Iran, which backs both groups, has also directly traded fire with Israel, in April and then again this month.

The tensions with Hezbollah boiled over in September, as Israel unleashed a wave of heavy airstrikes and killed Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders. Israel launched a ground invasion into Lebanon at the start of October.

Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday, killing one person in the northern city of Maalot-Tarshiha, authorities said. Israeli strikes in the coastal city of Sidon killed at least five people, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

UNRWA and other international groups continued to express outrage Tuesday about the Israeli parliament's decision to cut ties to the agency.

Israel says UNRWA has been infiltrated by Hamas and that the militant group siphons off aid and uses U.N. facilities to shield its activities, allegations denied by the U.N. agency.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer vowed that aid will continue to reach Gaza, as Israel plans to coordinate with aid organizations or other bodies within the U.N. “Ultimately, we will ensure that a more efficient replacement for UNRWA takes its role, not one which is infiltrated by the terrorist organization,” he said.

Multiple U.N. agencies rallied Tuesday around UNRWA, calling it the “backbone” of the world body’s aid activities in Gaza and other Palestinian areas. UNRWA provides education, health care and emergency aid to millions of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants. Refugee families make up the majority of Gaza’s population.

Israel has sharply restricted aid to northern Gaza this month, prompting a warning from the United States that failure to facilitate greater humanitarian assistance could lead to a reduction in military aid.

In its attack on Israel last year, Hamas killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 as hostages. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. Around 90% of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced from their homes, often multiple times.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Mroue from Beirut. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, Matthew Lee in Washington, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

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

Rescue workers search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubbles as they search for victims at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

An Israeli drone flies over Beirut, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Neighbors clean blood stains from the ceiling of a damaged house where one person was killed after a projectile launched from Lebanon slammed into Maalot-Tarshiha, northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Neighbors examine the damaged house where one person was killed after a projectile launched from Lebanon slammed into Maalot-Tarshiha, northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People react at the site where one person was killed after a projectile launched from Lebanon slammed into Maalot-Tarshiha, northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People react at the site where one person was killed after a projectile launched from Lebanon slammed into Maalot-Tarshiha, northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Members of the Israeli police bomb squad work at the site where one person was killed after a projectile launched from Lebanon slammed into Maalot-Tarshiha, northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at a hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheik Naim Kassem, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks past the east Jerusalem compound of UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

FILE - Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, listens to a speech by then-leader Hassan Nasrallah on a screen in southern Beirut, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)