DEIR AL-BALAH: Palestinian medical officials say two Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, most in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone.
One strike late Monday hit a makeshift cafeteria used by displaced people in Muwasi, the center of the so-called humanitarian zone. At least 11 people were killed, including two children, according to officials at Nasser Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Video from the scene showed men pulling bloodied wounded from among tables and chairs set up in the sand in an enclosure made of corrugated metal sheets.
The strike came hours after the Israeli military announced an expansion of the zone, where it has told Palestinians evacuating from other parts of Gaza to take refuge. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering in sprawling tent camps in and around Muwasi, a largely desolate area of dunes and agricultural fields with few facilities or services along the Mediterranean coast of southern Gaza.
Israel faces a deadline this week for the Biden administration’s ultimatum for it to allow more aid into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding.
Another strike early Tuesday hit a house in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing three people including a woman, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. The strike also wounded 11 others, it said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either strike.
Israel’s 19-month-old campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities who don’t distinguish between civilians and militants in their count, but say more than half the dead were women and children. Israel says it targets Hamas militants and blames the militant group for civilian deaths, saying it operates in residential areas and infrastructure and among displaced people.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third believed to be dead.
Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say
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Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say
- One strike late Monday hit a cafeteria in the so-called Muwasi humanitarian zone west of the city of Khan Younis
Election of new Iraqi president delayed by Kurds
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament postponed the election of a president on Tuesday to allow Kurdish rivals time to agree on a candidate.
Parliamentary Speaker Haibat Al-Halbussi received requests from Iraq's two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, to postpone the vote to allow both parties more time to reach a deal.
By convention, a Shi’ite holds the powerful post of prime minister, the parliamentary Speaker is a Sunni and the largely ceremonial presidency goes to a Kurd.
Under a tacit agreement between the two main Kurdish parties, a PUK member holds the Iraqi presidency, while the president and regional premier of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is selected from the KDP. But this time the KDP has named Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as its own candidate for the presidency.
Once elected, the president will then have 15 days to appoint a prime minister, widely expected to be Nouri Al-Maliki, who held the post from 2006 to 2014. The shrewd 75-year-old politician is Iraq’s only two-term premier since the 2003 US-led invasion.
The Coordination Framework, an alliance of Shi’ite parties that holds a parliamentary majority, has already endorsed Maliki.
