Strike on mosque kills 19 as Israel bombards northern Gaza and southern Beirut
Deir Al-Balah, Oct 6: An Israeli strike on a mosque in the Gaza Strip early Sunday killed at least 19 people, Palestinian officials said, as Israel intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza and southern Beirut in a widening war with Iran-allied groups across the region.
Displaced people were sheltering at the mosque that was struck near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. A further four people were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people near the town.
The Israeli military said both strikes targeted Hamas group, without providing evidence.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead from the strike on the mosque were all men.
Israel is still battling Hamas in Gaza a year after the group's attack on Israel, and has opened a new front in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has been trading fire with Israel along the border since the war in Gaza began. Israel has also vowed to strike Iran itself after Tehran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel last week.
The widening conflict risks drawing in the United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel, as well as US-allied Arab countries that host American forces. Iran-allied groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have already joined in with long-distance strikes on Israel.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
