DEIR EL-BALAH – Israeli airstrikes killed at least 15 people, including women and children overnight in Gaza, according to hospital officials and a body count by an Associated Press journalist on Sunday.
The latest strikes occurred as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to leave Monday for the United States, where he is expected to meet with President Joe Biden and address Congress to make his case for the nine-month war against Hamas while cease-fire negotiations continue. A team will be sent to continue talks on Thursday, Netanyahu's office said.
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The already precarious humanitarian conditions inside besieged Gaza have worsened with the discovery of the polio virus as water and sanitation services have suffered for the territory’s population of 2.3 million, most of it displaced. Traces of the virus were found in sewage samples in Gaza. The World Health Organization has said no one has been treated for symptoms caused by the infection.
Israel’s military said that soldiers would be vaccinated, and it would work with organizations to bring in vaccines for Palestinians.
Israel’s latest airstrikes were in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where nine people, including two children, were killed, and the southern city of Khan Younis, where at least six people were killed, including two girls. Men and women wept and embraced the small bodies in white shrouds.
“Unknown body of five-month baby” was written on one.
Smoke also rose from the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 38,900 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war began with an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 120 remain held, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and secure the return of the remaining hostages. Families of hostages and thousands of other Israelis have rallied in weekly demonstrations, urging the prime minister to reach a cease-fire deal that would bring loved ones home.
Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased deal that would stop the fighting and free the hostages.
Concerns about a wider regional conflict continue. Israel on Saturday struck the port of Hodeida in Yemen in the first known Israeli strikes there since the war in Gaza began. The strikes, in response to a deadly Houthi drone strike in Tel Aviv, threatened to open a new front as Israel battles Iranian proxies in the region.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said that it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen as the Houthis vowed “impactful strikes.”
Proxies also include Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon. On Sunday, Lebanon's military said two of its soldiers were wounded after an Israeli strike hit a watchtower on the outskirts of the border town of Alma al-Shaab. Earlier Sunday, Israel's military said it struck multiple areas in southern Lebanon after a number of drones were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory. It said hits were identified in the areas of Hanita and Ya’ara in northern Israel but no injuries were reported.
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Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.