Successive Israeli evacuation orders in Gaza have displaced 90% of its 2.1 million residents since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, the top U.N. humanitarian official for the Palestinian territory says.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris says she and President Joe Biden are working to end the war in Gaza, where the International Rescue Committee says the polio virus has been circulating for the first time in a quarter-century because of the destruction of hospitals and water infrastructure, along with overcrowded living conditions.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that cease-fire talks in Cairo have been constructive and will continue over the weekend. The United States, Egypt and Qatar are mediating the talks. A crucial sticking point involves Israel’s demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza.
The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas and other militants stormed Israel, killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted around 250. About 110 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead. The Israeli offensive launched in response has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the local Health Ministry, which doesn't say how many were militants or civilians.
Here’s the latest:
U.N. seeks humanitarian pauses in fighting in Gaza for polio vaccination effort
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations is stepping up its demand for humanitarian pauses in fighting in Gaza to vaccinate more than 600,000 children against polio following the World Health Organization’s confirmation that a 10-month-old unvaccinated baby has polio and is partly paralyzed.
It is the first internationally confirmed polio case in Gaza in 25 years. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post Friday that the baby in central Deir al-Balah developed paralysis in the lower left leg. Gaza’s Ministry of Health previously confirmed the case.
WHO and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF are working with the Gaza ministry to implement two rounds of polio vaccination, four weeks apart, the U.N. humanitarian office said.
The key is agreement for humanitarian pauses from Israel, Hamas and other militants in Gaza. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “those discussions are continuing.”
He said a number of refrigerated trucks to keep the vaccines cold have arrived in Gaza, but the vaccines haven’t been delivered yet.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also reported that three Israeli evacuation orders on Wednesday and Thursday affected 15 neighborhoods in Deir al-Balah and southern Khan Younis and included nearly 150 sites where displaced Palestinians had sought shelter.
Israel has ordered 13 evacuations in August alone, according to OCHA.
Israeli strikes injure 7 in Syria, state media says
DAMASCUS, Syria — Seven civilians were injured in Israeli strikes in central Syria on Friday, Syrian state media said.
The state-run SANA new agency, citing an unnamed military official, said the strikes targeted “a number of sites” without specifying what they were, and that air defense systems shot some of the missiles down.
The opposition-linked war monitor Syrian Network for Human Rights said the strikes targeted sites including a weapons depot and fuel storage linked to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in Homs and Hama provinces.
There was no immediate statement from Israel.
U.S. says cease-fire talks have been constructive
BUELLTON, Calif. — White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that cease-fire talks in Cairo have been constructive and will continue over the weekend.
Kirby pushed back against reports that negotiations are near collapse as Hamas and Israel have major differences over Israel’s insistence that it maintain forces in two strategic corridors in Gaza. CIA Director William Burns and Brett McGurk, a senior adviser on the Middle East to President Joe Biden, are leading the U.S. side of negotiations.
“There has been progress made,” Kirby said, “We need now for both sides to come together and work towards implementation.”
Kirby did not detail in which aspects of the negotiations that the U.S. has seen progress.
Families of hostages meet with Netanyahu
JERUSALEM — The families of the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday and vented their anger at his failure to seal a cease-fire deal that would lead to their loved ones’ release from Hamas captivity.
The Hostages Family Forum, a group representing relatives of hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, said Netanyahu reiterated his commitment to do everything in his power to bring their family members back alive.
“The word ‘alive’ limits this to a certain time frame,” said Yizhar Lifshitz, son of hostage Oded Lifshitz, whose mother was kidnapped and freed by Hamas last October.
More than 100 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including dozens who are presumed dead.
Israeli troops recently recovered the bodies of six captives from an underground tunnel in southern Gaza. The revelation Thursday that the bodies were riddled with bullet wounds has increased domestic pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a cease-fire.
Netanyahu blames Hamas for the deadlocked negotiations.
Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon kill at least 7, including a child, state media report
BEIRUT — Five Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon on Friday killed at least eight people, including a child and several Hezbollah militants, state media reported.
A drone strike in the town of Aita al-Jabal killed a 7-year-old child along with one other person, the Lebanese health ministry said. The Israeli military said the strike killed Mohammad Mahmoud Najem, an operative in Hezbollah’s drone and rocket unit.
Hezbollah later confirmed Najem’s death and also announced the deaths of four other members Friday.
Photographs from the scene showed a burned-out small pickup truck.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has been clashing nearly daily with Israeli forces in the border region for more than 10 months. The clashes have killed more than 500 people in Lebanon — most of them militants but including more than 100 civilians and noncombatants — and 23 soldiers and 26 civilians in Israel.
Lufthansa extends flight suspensions to some Mideast destinations, but will resume service to Amman and Irbil
BERLIN — German airline Lufthansa said Friday that it has extended its suspension of flights to some destinations in the Middle East, but will resume service to Amman and Irbil on Aug. 27.
The company said that the Lufthansa Group -- which also includes Austrian Airlines and Swiss -- is suspending flights to and from Tel Aviv and Tehran up to and including Sept. 2. Flights to and from Beirut will remain suspended up to and including Sept. 30. It said that “a northern corridor in Iraqi airspace will be used” for flights to Irbil.
Previously, flights to all these destinations were suspended up to and including Aug. 26.
WHO director says Palestinian infant has partial paralysis after contracting polio
GENEVA — The director-general of the World Health Organization says that a Palestinian infant who has contracted polio, the first case in Gaza in a quarter-century, has developed partial paralysis.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Friday that the 10-month-old developed paralysis in the lower left leg and is in stable condition.
“I am gravely concerned,” he said.
Samples from the infected child were tested by the WHO and confirmed to be linked to the variant found in Gaza’s wastewater.
Given the high risk of its spread, the Geneva-based WHO is working with the Palestinian Health Ministry and UNICEF to launch two rounds of vaccinations at the end of August and September.
It’s calling for all parties to implement humanitarian pauses in the fighting for the vaccination rounds to be carried out.
After being eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, polio vaccinations plunged after the war began on Oct. 7, and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, with hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage and garbage.
Gaza wakes to gunfire as mediators keep pushing for a cease-fire deal
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Fighting continued in the central Gaza Strip on Friday, even as the United States, Qatar and Egypt pushed forward to try and win an agreement on a cease-fire deal.
Heavy weapons and machine guns could be heard firing at daybreak near east Deir al-Balah in a video shot by The Associated Press, with the streets nearly deserted. In the southern city of Khan Younis, four people were killed in an early Israeli strike on their vehicle, Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal said.
Bassal reported late Thursday that 24 people were killed the day before in multiple strikes across the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military, including in Gaza City in the north and Khan Younis in the south.
He said that the strikes also caused multiple injuries, but didn't specify how many.
Israel’s military said early Friday that it had killed “dozens” of militants during close-quarters fighting Thursday in the central and southern Gaza Strip. It said that in Khan Younis, the fighting including strikes against areas from which projectiles were launched at southern Israel over the past week.
The air force also struck approximately 30 targets across the Gaza Strip, including military posts, weapons storage facilities and launch sites in the area of Khan Younis, the military said.
Kamala Harris says she and Biden are working to end the war in Gaza
CHICAGO — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris says she and President Joe Biden are working to end the war in Gaza as she closed out the Democratic National Convention.
Harris declared Thursday that she would “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself.”
“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating," she said. “Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. … President Biden and I are working to end this war.”
She indicated that the suffering could end with a cease-fire and the release of hostages taken in the October raid.
On Wednesday, the parents of one of the young men being held hostage in Gaza addressed the convention.
Israel's evacuation orders have displaced 90% of Gaza residents, UN says
UNITED NATIONS — Successive Israeli evacuation orders in Gaza, including 12 just in August, have displaced 90% of its 2.1 million residents since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, the top United Nations humanitarian official for the Palestinian territory says.
Muhannad Hadi said the evacuation orders are endangering civilians instead of protecting them. “They are forcing families to flee again, often under fire and with the few belongings they can carry with them, into an ever-shrinking area" that is crowded and unsafe.
Civilians are being deprived of medical care, shelter, water wells and humanitarian supplies, “running from one destroyed place to another, with no end in sight," he said.
Hadi said in the statement Thursday that international humanitarian law requires the protection of civilians. “The way forward is as clear as it is urgent: Protect civilians, release the hostages, facilitate humanitarian access, agree on a cease-fire.”
The evacuations are also the latest threat to U.N. personnel working in Gaza and affect humanitarian facilities, according to U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. He cited as an example that the U.N. World Food Program lost access to its warehouse in central Deir al-Balah.
“This was the third and last operational warehouse in Gaza’s middle area,” Dujarric said. “Five community kitchens operated by WFP have also been evacuated, as the agency seeks new locations for them.”