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Israeli attacks in Gaza kill 35 Palestinians but pauses allow third day of polio vaccinations

Later on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike killed nine Palestinians inside a house near Omar Al-Mokhtar Street in the middle of Gaza City, medics said.

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Israeli forces killed at least 35 Palestinians across Gaza on Tuesday as they battled Hamas-led militants, Palestinian officials said, but brief pauses in fighting allowed medics to conduct a third day of polio vaccinations for children, Reuters reported.

Among those killed were four women in the southern city of Rafah and eight people near a hospital in Gaza City in the north, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

Later on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike killed nine Palestinians inside a house near Omar Al-Mokhtar Street in the middle of Gaza City, medics said.

Another strike hit near a college in Sheikh Radwan, a northern suburb of the city. The Israeli military said the strike targeted Hamas militants operating from a command center embedded inside the former Nama College.

Others were killed in separate air strikes across the territory, medics said.

The Israeli military said it killed eight Palestinian gunmen, including a senior Hamas commander who took part in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, at a command centre near the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

A statement said Ahmed Fozi Nazer Muhammad Wadia had taken command of a "massacre of civilians carried out by Hamas terrorists" in Israel's Netiv HaAsara community near the Gaza border. There was no response from Hamas.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were battling Israeli forces in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, and also in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, read the report.

Nevertheless, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that it was ahead of its targets for polio vaccinations in Gaza on Tuesday, day three of a mass campaign, and had inoculated about a quarter of children under 10.

The campaign, which was hastened by the discovery of the first polio case in a Gazan baby last month, relies on daily eight-hour pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in specific areas of the besieged enclave.

Diplomatic efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire and release foreign and Israeli hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel have stalled, however.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israeli troops would remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of Gaza, one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal to end the fighting and return hostages.

Hamas, which wants an agreement to end the war and see Israeli forces out of all of the Gaza Strip, says such a condition, among some others, would prevent a deal. Netanyahu says war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

The United Nations, in collaboration with the local health authorities, embarked on the third day of a complex campaign to vaccinate around 640,000 children in Gaza against polio, Reuters reported.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described pauses in fighting to allow the vaccinations as a "rare ray of hope and humanity in the cascade of horror," his spokesperson said on Tuesday.

"If the parties can act to protect children from a deadly virus...surely they can and must act to protect children and all innocents from the horrors of war," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, told reporters in Geneva that it had vaccinated more than 161,000 children under the age of 10 in the central area in the first two days of its campaign, compared with a projection of around 150,000.

"Up until now things are going well," he said. "These humanitarian pauses, up until now they work. We still have 10 days to go." He said that some children in southern Gaza were thought to be outside the agreed zone for the pauses and that negotiations continued in order to reach them.

Palestinians say a key reason for the return of polio is the collapse of the health system and the destruction of most Gaza hospitals. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes, which the Islamist group denies, read the report.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel, when its fighters killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 40,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the enclave's health ministry.

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Afghan national arrested after stabbing attack in German park

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A 28-year-old man from Afghanistan was arrested following a knife attack on Wednesday in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg in which two people were killed, including a toddler, police and the state health minister said.

The suspect deliberately attacked a kindergarten group in the park with a kitchen knife, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said, Reuters reported.

A 41-year old passerby, a German man, and a two-year old boy of Moroccan descent were fatally injured, while a Syrian two-year old girl was injured, he said.

The suspect was detained at the scene in Schoental park, an English-style garden in the city, where the attack took place on Wednesday morning.

Three other people were also wounded, including a 61-year-old man, a child and a teacher, Bavarian Health Minister Judith Gerlach said.

The suspect, who had a history of violent behaviour, was undergoing psychiatric treatment. He had had his asylum process closed and said he would voluntarily leave Germany in December, but had not left and remained under treatment, Herrmann said.

The stabbings add to a string of violent attacks in Germany that have raised concerns over security and migration ahead of parliamentary elections on Feb. 23.

"An initial search of his accommodation in the asylum shelter did not reveal any signs of radical Islamist tendencies but only medications consistent with his psychiatric treatment," Hermann added.

Police said there was no indication there might be further suspects involved in the incident.

On Dec. 20, six people were killed and around 200 hurt when a Saudi doctor rammed a car into people strolling at a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg.

In August, Germany said it resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country.

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Iranian foreign minister Araghchi to visit Kabul

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Iran's Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi will soon visit Kabul, its embassy announced on Thursday.

The embassy did not provide further details about the visit.

A foreign ministry official in Kabul said however that the visit could take bilateral relations to a new level.

Zakir Jalali, director of the third political department of the Foreign Ministry, said on X that the common political, economic and security interests between Afghanistan and Iran are an opportunity to strengthen bilateral cooperation.

“The upcoming visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi to Kabul is a constructive step towards strengthening these relations and can take relations between the two countries to a new level."

This comes after acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met Wednesday with Iran’s new ambassador to Kabul where discussions focused on strengthening bilateral ties.

Ali Reza Bigdeli took over as ambassador early last month. He succeeded Hassan Kazemi Qomi.

In addition, Pakistan's Special Representative for Afghanistan Muhammad Sadiq and Iran's Special Envoy for Kabul and director general for South Asia, Hashem Ashjazade, met on Monday in Islamabad for talks.

Sadiq is also expected to travel to Russia and China to discuss Afghanistan with officials from those countries.

The Islamic Emirate has said repeatedly that Kabul seeks good relations with all neighboring countries and the region, and aims to strengthen its ties with various countries by following an economy-focused policy.

 

 

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SIV holders not included in US suspension of refugee program

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The US State Department suspended its refugee program Tuesday night, halting all refugee flights into the United States, under direction of President Donald Trump’s executive order, but the suspension does not apply to Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders.

The US State Department said in a memo to resettlement partners that the flights of refugees scheduled to travel to the United States have been cancelled, CNN reported.

Approximately 10,000 refugees had travel booked, which is now canceled. They include citizens of Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela, Syria and Burma.

There are more than 1,000 Afghan refugees in Doha, CNN cited a US government official as saying, and several thousand, up to as many as 10,000, in Pakistan. But there are other Afghan refugees in “many, many countries around the world … whose cases will now just be stopped,” the official said.

These include those who are not SIV holders, according to the official.

While the US State Department has made it clear that the suspension does not apply to SIV holders, Trump’s order has ignited fears that he could halt this program as well, according to Kim Staffieri, executive director of the Association of Wartime Allies, a group that helps Afghans and Iraqis resettle in the United States.

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