Trump nominates Republican once accused of mishandling taxpayer funds as HHS watchdog

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has nominated a Republican attorney who was once accused of mishandling taxpayer funds and has a history of launching investigations against abortion clinics to lead the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General.

If confirmed by the Senate, Thomas March Bell will oversee fraud, waste and abuse audits of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which spend more than $1 trillion annually.

Bell, who was nominated on Monday, currently serves as general counsel for House Republicans and has worked for GOP politicians and congressional offices for decades. The president's nomination is a brazenly political one for a job that has long been viewed as nonpartisan and focuses largely on accounting for and ferreting out fraud in some of the nation’s biggest spending programs.

Bell was terminated from his role at Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality in 1997 after a state audit showed he improperly authorized a nearly $8,000 payment to the agency’s former spokesman, according to Washington Post reporting at the time.

He was staff director for House Republicans' 2016 investigation into Planned Parenthood, which offers abortion, contraception and other family planning services at clinics around the country. That controversial panel Bell spearheaded looked into Planned Parenthood's use of fetal tissue for medical research. During the first Trump administration, Bell's job at the HHS Office of Civil Rights drew rebuke from Democrats.

When Trump began his second term, he immediately ousted a dozen government watchdogs, including the HHS inspector general. Watchdogs typically stay on when administrations change, and Congress is supposed to receive notice when a president removes them. Eight inspectors general have sued over their mass firing and asked to be reinstated.

Bell referred a request for comment to the White House, which did not immediately respond.

The HHS inspector general also is responsible for investigating hospitals and insurers and ensuring they following regulations. The office has the power to enforce stiff penalties. Inspector generals are viewed as independent from the agencies they police.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had little to celebrate Sunday as they marked the normally festive Eid al-Fitr with rapidly dwindling food supplies and renewed fighting in the Israel-Hamas war. Israeli strikes killed at least 19 people, mostly women and children, health officials said.

Many prayed outside demolished mosques on the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. It's supposed to be a joyous occasion when families feast and purchase new clothes for children, but most of Gaza's 2 million people are just trying to survive.

“It’s the Eid of sadness,” Adel al-Shaer said after attending prayers amid rubble in the central town of Deir al-Balah. “We lost our loved ones, our children, our lives and our futures.”

Twenty members of his extended family have been killed by Israeli strikes, including four young nephews a few days ago, he said and began to cry.

Israel ended the ceasefire with Hamas and resumed the 17-month war earlier this month with a surprise bombardment that killed hundreds, after the militant group refused to accept changes to the truce reached in January. Israel has not allowed food, fuel or humanitarian aid to enter Gaza for a month.

“There is killing, displacement, hunger and a siege,” said Saed al-Kourd, a worshipper. “We go out to perform God’s rituals in order to make the children happy, but as for the joy of Eid? There is no Eid.”

Arab mediators are trying to get the truce back on track. Hamas said Saturday it had accepted a new proposal from Egypt and Qatar. Israel said it made a counter-proposal in coordination with the United States, which has also been mediating. The details were not immediately known.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue military operations while negotiating. He rejected claims that Israel does not want to end the war, while laying out conditions that go far beyond the signed ceasefire agreement and have been rejected by Hamas.

“Hamas will disarm. Its leaders will be allowed out. We will look out for the general security in the Gaza Strip and allow for the realization of (President Donald) Trump’s plan,” Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting.

Trump has proposed that Gaza's population be resettled in other countries so the U.S. can redevelop Gaza for others. Palestinians say they do not want to leave their homeland. Human rights experts say the plan would likely violate international law.

Israeli strikes on Sunday morning killed at least 16 people, including nine children and three women, according to Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Two girls appeared to be wearing new clothes purchased for the holiday, according to an Associated Press cameraman, including spotless sneakers.

On Sunday evening, a strike hit a tent in Deir al-Balah and killed at least two people, according to an AP journalist at the hospital.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 14 bodies were recovered in the southern city of Rafah, including eight of its emergency medical technicians and five members of Gaza’s Civil Defense, all who had been missing for a week. Israel’s military has said it fired on advancing “suspicious vehicles” and later discovered some were ambulances.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages. Hamas is still holding 59 captives — 24 believed to be alive.

Israel's offensive has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tally. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.

Netanyahu’s security Cabinet approved the construction of a road for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Critics say it will open the door for Israel to annex a key area just outside Jerusalem, further undermining the feasibility of a future Palestinian state.

Netanyahu’s office said the project is meant to streamline travel for Palestinians in communities near the large Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim.

Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group, said the road will divert Palestinian traffic outside of Maaleh Adumim and the surrounding area known as E1, a tract of open land deemed essential for the territorial contiguity of a future state.

That will make it easier for Israel to annex E1, according to Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert with the group, because Israel can claim there is no disruption to Palestinian movement. Critics say Israeli settlements and other land grabs make a contiguous future state increasingly impossible.

Several roads in the West Bank are meant for use by either Israelis or Palestinians, which international rights groups say is part of an apartheid system, allegations Israel rejects.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three for their future state. A two-state solution is widely seen as the only way to resolve the decades-old conflict.

Jahjouh reported from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.

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