15 Killed in Airstrikes in Eastern Libya

A general view shows the eastern Libyan city of Derna on March 15, 2011. (AFP)
A general view shows the eastern Libyan city of Derna on March 15, 2011. (AFP)
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15 Killed in Airstrikes in Eastern Libya

A general view shows the eastern Libyan city of Derna on March 15, 2011. (AFP)
A general view shows the eastern Libyan city of Derna on March 15, 2011. (AFP)

At least 15 people were killed, including women and children, in airstrikes on the eastern Libyan city of Derna late on Monday night, said a medical source.

The National Libyan Army has been besieging the city for months and has carried out intermittent airstrikes against it.

Military officials refused to comment on the latest strikes.

A resident of the city said that the shelling last about an hour and that they targeted the al-Dhahr al-Hamr neighborhood in southern Derna and the mountainous al-Fatayeh region, 20 kms away from the city.

The medical source said that at least 17 people were wounding in the strikes, adding that so far all victims were civilians.

The coastal city of Derna lies 265 kms away from the Egyptian border in the west. It is currently under the control of an alliance of extremists and former members of the “Shura Council of the Derna Mujahideen”.

The ISIS terrorist group captured ISIS in late 2014, but the Council managed to expel it in the following year.



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.