Fresh Israeli strikes kill 42 in Gaza

Polio vaccination campaign suspended

CAIRO:

Israeli strikes across Gaza killed 42 people on Wednesday as Israeli troops intensified a siege of northern parts of the Palestinian enclave, surrounding hospitals and refugee shelters, and ordering residents to head south, medics and residents said.

The Gaza health ministry and the World Health Organization said they would be unable to start a polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza as planned because of the intense bombardments, mass displacements and lack of access.

Israeli forces began the operation in the north about three weeks ago. The operation has intensified since Hamas chief Yahya Al-Sinwar was killed by Israel a week ago. Residents say the troops have besieged shelters, forcing displaced people to leave while rounding up many of the men.

The health ministry said at least 650 people had been killed since the new offensive began. Of at least 42 people killed by Israeli military strikes across the enclave on Wednesday, 37 deaths were in northern Gaza.

The Gaza Civil Emergency Service said three of its rescuers were wounded in northern Gaza in a "targeted strike" that aimed to force them out of Jabalia, hours after the Israeli army ordered some of their staff to leave the camp.

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said one of its staff members was killed when an UNRWA vehicle was hit in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Medics said the man's brother was also killed.

The municipality of Gaza City said two city workers were killed and three others wounded in a strike there. Health and civil emergency officials said dozens of bodies of Palestinians were scattered on roadsides and under the rubble where medical teams could not reach them.

Hospitals in the north have either stopped providing medical services or are hardly operating because of the offensive. Hospitals where medics have refused Israeli evacuation orders say they are running out of blood for transfusions, as well as coffins and shrouds for the dead.

"We call on the world, which has failed to provide protection and shelter for our people and has been unable to deliver food and medicine, to make an effort to send shrouds for our fallen," the Gaza health ministry said in a statement.

The polio vaccination campaign, launched after a baby was paralysed by the disease in Gaza for the first time in 25 years, had to be halted. "We have not been able to launch the campaign to vaccinate 120,000 children in Gaza City and northern Gaza today because of the siege and the Israeli aggression," health ministry official Majdi Dhair said.

Israel's military said the vaccination campaign in northern Gaza will begin in the coming days, "after a joint assessment and at the request" of the World Health Organization and the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef).

Call for truce

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel and was heading to Saudi Arabia to push for a ceasefire, the first major US peace initiative since the killing of Hamas leader Sinwar and the last before a Nov 5 presidential election that could upend US policy in the region.