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Iran Revolutionary Guards Colonel Killed in Strike in Syria, State Media Says

A car is removed from the area where reported Israeli air strikes targeted a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district of the Syrian capital Damascus on February 21, 2024. (AFP)
A car is removed from the area where reported Israeli air strikes targeted a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district of the Syrian capital Damascus on February 21, 2024. (AFP)
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Iran Revolutionary Guards Colonel Killed in Strike in Syria, State Media Says

A car is removed from the area where reported Israeli air strikes targeted a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district of the Syrian capital Damascus on February 21, 2024. (AFP)
A car is removed from the area where reported Israeli air strikes targeted a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district of the Syrian capital Damascus on February 21, 2024. (AFP)

A member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards navy serving as a military adviser in Syria was killed in a suspected Israeli strike on Friday, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported.

Other Iranian media reports said Colonel Reza Zarei was killed along with two fighters from Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

Zarei was killed in a strike on a building used by Iranian forces in Syria’s coastal region of Tartous, a senior security source from the alliance supporting Syria’s government told Reuters.

When asked about the strike, the Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign reports.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have scaled back deployment of their senior officers in Syria due to a spate of deadly Israeli strikes and were relying more on allied Shiite militia to preserve their sway there, Reuters reported in February.

Israel has mostly struck areas around the capital Damascus but strikes in Tartous are rare.

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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.