Polio pause….
A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio and prevent the spread of the virus has begun, the Health Ministry said Saturday, as Palestinians in the Hamas-governed enclave and the occupied West Bank reeled from Israel’s military offensives.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military late Saturday in a terse announcement said it had “located a number of bodies during combat” in Gaza. The army was trying to identify the bodies, including whether they were hostages, but said the process would take several hours. “We ask to refrain from spreading rumors,” it said. There were no further details.
A small number of children in Gaza received vaccine doses a day before the large-scale rollout and limited pauses in the fighting agreed to by Israel and the U.N. World Health Organization. Associated Press journalists saw about 10 children receiving doses at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis….
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Bodies found by the IDF….
The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had found a number of dead bodies during an operation in the Gaza Strip, asking the Israeli public to refrain from speculation about their identities.
The announcement was widely interpreted in Israel, however, as confirmation that more Israeli hostages had died in captivity, and it quickly amplified calls for an immediate cease-fire in order to free the roughly 100 captives still held, both dead and alive, in Gaza.
Roughly 250 people were captured by Hamas and its allies during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which started the war.
The military said in a statement on Saturday that the recently found bodies had yet to be identified and brought to Israel. It did not give further details about how many bodies had been found or where they were discovered, and it would not officially confirm that they were hostages….
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Minutes after the military’s announcement, an umbrella group representing the families of the hostages said in a statement: “Netanyahu abandoned the hostages! This is now a fact.” The statement also called on the public to prepare for new demonstrations starting as soon as Sunday…..
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Gaza Evacuations…
In August alone, Israeli military evacuation orders in Gaza have displaced more than 250,000 Palestinians, according to the United Nations — shrinking the enclave’s only humanitarian zone and making it increasingly difficult for civilians to find food, water and shelter.
There have been 16 evacuation orders this month, with the most recent covering parts of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, the only major urban area that has yet to see a prolonged military incursion. The affected blocks contain critical civilian infrastructure: warehouses full of humanitarian supplies; thoroughfares for delivering aid, now including polio vaccines; and 17 health centers, according to the United Nations. As the Israel Defense Forces closed in this week, hundreds of patients fled al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the largest medical center in central Gaza.
Palestinians have been urged to flee to Mawasi, an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone along the coast that aid groups and the displaced say is already desperately overcrowded and underserved. A Washington Post analysis found that evacuation notices since May have reduced the size of the area by about a third.
On Friday, the IDF said it had completed operations in Deir al-Balah and the southern city of Khan Younis, but did not say whether its troops would withdraw. The military’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, said in a separate statement that Palestinians evacuated from some areas in both cities would be allowed to return, adding that the humanitarian zone would be “adapted.”…
Aug 31, 2024 – ISW Press
At least two Palestinian fighters attempted to carry out two coordinated car bombing attacks in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank on August 30. No militia has claimed responsibility for the attack at the time of writing, though the attack targeting IDF settlements is consistent with recent Hamas threats to target Israeli settlers in the West Bank.