Israel ramps up West Bank invasion as Gaza carnage goes on despite polio vaccination pause

Israeli forces kill dozens of Palestinians in fresh raids across the besieged Gaza Strip, while a large onslaught by the regime's troops in the occupied West Bank ramps up. 

Medical sources said at least 15 people had been killed in Israeli airstrikes across various areas of the Gaza Strip since dawn on Thursday. 

Hours after the first phase of a polio vaccination campaign wrapped up in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike hit the courtyard of hospital there.

The strike outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital occurred overnight, shortly before he World Health Organization said on Thursday that the effort to vaccinate children had shifted to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, beginning the second phase of the campaign.

UN officials had said Israel had agreed to brief, staggered pauses in its military invasion of Gaza to allow health officials to make a frantic drive to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children and avert a deadly polio outbreak.

The strike near the hospital, in the city of Deir al-Balah, killed four people and wounded a number of others, including women and children, according to Wafa news agency.

Witnesses said the bomb landed among some of the makeshift shelters on the hospital grounds that were being used by people who had fled their homes. Video  showed tents and shelters in ruins, their wooden beams flattened, and people’s belongings strewed outside the hospital, one of Gaza’s largest.

At least three Palestinians were killed and many others wounded in Israeli shelling targeting the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza City targeted a group of people near a school in the Zeitoun neighborhood. According to the Wafa news agency and local reports, the air raid killed at least three Palestinians and injured many others.

The health ministry in Gaza said Thursday that at least 40,878 people have been killed in the Israeli war, now nearing its 12th month.

The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to ministry figures, which also list 94,454 people as wounded in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli war on Gaza began.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces launched new deadly aerial and ground raids on the ninth day of their invasion. 

“Our brave fighters were able to target the Zionist enemy forces storming the Far’a camp with a highly explosive device in the market axis, achieving direct hits among the enemy's ranks,” the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Tubas branch said in a statement. 

The raid came house after a 16-year-old Palestinian had been shot dead by Israeli forces in the area. 

Wafa said Israeli soldiers fired several bullets at the 16-year-old Majed Fida Abu Zeina in Far’a, “abused him and prevented ambulance crews from reaching him”.

“Then they dragged him out of the camp using a military bulldozer,” the report said.

Earlier on Thursday, Israel targeted a vehicle with missiles, leaving six people dead.

Israeli soldiers also stormed the Tulkarm refugee camp after a brief withdrawal earlier on Thursday, where Palestinians resisted the advance of bulldozers and military vehicles on the outskirts of the camp, leading to armed clashes.

According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, the Israeli army entered al-Akasha neighborhood, deployed snipers, and surrounded the Martyr Thabet Governmental Hospital. They also imposed a curfew near the al-Shweika roundabout, forcing shops to close.

Girl killed by Israeli sniper in West Bank was just looking out window, says father

A 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by an Israeli sniper in Jenin was just looking out of her home window, her father says.

Meanwhile, the Israeli siege of Jenin has been ongoing since the army launched a massive operation in the West Bank late last month. 

Israeli troops pushed deeper into the city on Thursday, besieging its main hospital and surrounding the Jenin Municipality building. 

Local media also reported that Israeli forces were raiding the al-Ein refugee camp, west of the city of Nablus.

Israel began a massive military invasion across the West Bank last week that has killed at least 39 Palestinians and wounded 130, with the vast majority of casualties in Jenin.

Over 140 people have also been wounded and more than 180 arrested since last week.

The Israeli onslaught is the largest of its kind since the Second Intifada.

Violence by settlers and raids by Israeli forces have surged in the West Bank since Israel launched its barbaric military campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip in early October 2023.  

Israel using ‘lethal war-like tactics’ against Palestinians in West Bank, UN warns

The UN has warned that Israel is using ‘lethal war-like tactics’ against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, al-Haq and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights have warned of escalating violence in the West Bank and the use of tactics by Israeli forces that the world has witnessed in its war on Gaza.

In a landmark opinion on July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds.

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