Explosion Targets Hezbollah Official in Damascus

The Iranian consulate building in Damascus after it was targeted by an Israeli air strike in early April. (Reuters)
The Iranian consulate building in Damascus after it was targeted by an Israeli air strike in early April. (Reuters)
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Explosion Targets Hezbollah Official in Damascus

The Iranian consulate building in Damascus after it was targeted by an Israeli air strike in early April. (Reuters)
The Iranian consulate building in Damascus after it was targeted by an Israeli air strike in early April. (Reuters)

An explosive device detonated on Saturday in a car in the Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus where the headquarters of the Iranian embassy and other foreign missions are located.

The official SANA news agency quoted a source at the Damascus Police Command as saying: “The sound of the explosion that was heard in the Mazzeh area resulted from the explosion of an explosive device in a vehicle in Al-Huda Square,” pointing to material damage.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the bomb was placed inside a black Jeep near a restaurant, less than two kilometers from the Iranian embassy.

No information has been received so far about human losses, nor the identity of the targeted person. The owner of the vehicle was not in his car at the time of the explosion.

The monitor suggested that the target was a Lebanese figure working with Hezbollah, adding that many pro-Iranian figures and Syrian regime officers reside in Mazzeh.

The explosion occurred amid intense tension after Iran pledged to respond to an air strike that targeted its consulate in Damascus and was attributed to Israel.

The attack that destroyed the Iranian consulate, adjacent to the embassy building, on April 1, led to the death of seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, including two senior officers.



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.