Israel denies responsibility for the drone attack on the polio vaccination center in Gaza

Gaza’s health ministry says an Israeli drone struck a clinic in northern Gaza where children were being vaccinated against polio, a claim the Israeli military has denied.

The incident, which took place on Sunday during a lull in the fighting, injured six people, including four children.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF, which are jointly carrying out the vaccination campaign, have both expressed concern about the reported strike.

“Today’s attack took place while the humanitarian pause was still in effect, despite assurances that the pause would be respected from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” UNICEF spokesperson Rosalia Bollen told AP.

She described the incident as “disturbing.”

An Israeli military spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, said Israel “did not strike in the area at the stated time.”

The strikes complicated the rollout of a second round of a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza.

The Israeli military said more than 58,000 children had received a dose of the vaccine, but Gaza’s Health Ministry claimed it could not be administered to thousands of children in the region.

The vaccination campaign is a response to an outbreak of the virus this year.

At least 31 people were killed on Sunday by continued Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics said.

Health authorities in Gaza say 13 of those deaths occurred in northern Gaza, where the Israeli army has staged an offensive, claiming it wants to prevent a realignment of the militant group Hamas.

Medics said at least 13 Palestinians were killed in separate attacks on homes in Beit Lahiya and Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps and the focus of the army’s new offensive.

The rest were killed in separate Israeli attacks in Gaza City and other parts of the south.

A single attack in Khan Younis killed eight people, including four children.

According to Reuters, the Israeli army did not comment on its military actions in Gaza on Sunday.

It was previously stated that hundreds of Palestinian militants have been killed in ‘fighting’ since the new offensive began on October 5.

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The Israeli army said on Sunday it had arrested a Syrian citizen involved in Iranian networks following a ground attack on Syria.

Israel attacks town in southern Lebanon

The attacks in Gaza are part of a broader conflict that is unfolding in the Middle East and has spread to neighboring Lebanon.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah said it was acting in Lebanon in support of Palestinian militants Hamas, whose unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.

The Australian government considers Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations.

Three people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Lebanese city of Sidon on Sunday, according to the country’s health ministry.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it had intercepted several projectiles launched from Lebanon.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in the war in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of figures from the Lebanese Health Ministry.

More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, according to the Ministry of Health.

According to Israeli figures, Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.

Since then, Israel and Iran have also attacked each other several times.

Iranian-American journalist detained by Iran, US State Department says

The US State Department said on Sunday that Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh has been in custody for months, according to AP.

He had previously worked for a US government-funded broadcaster.

In August, he posted on social media that he was returning to Tehran for “negotiations” with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards after his family was detained.

Tehran has long used captured foreigners as bargaining chips in negotiations, most notably during the 1979 US hostage crisis, when dozens of Americans were held hostage in the US embassy for 444 days.

Rallies were held on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the hostage crisis.

In September last year, five Americans held in Iran for years were released in exchange for five Iranians in US custody and $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be released by South Korea.

ABC/wires