Hamas Accuses Israeli Spies of Killing Tunisian Drone Engineer

A member of the Palestinian security forces, loyal to Hamas, stands guard as men set up a barbed wire on the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 24, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo
A member of the Palestinian security forces, loyal to Hamas, stands guard as men set up a barbed wire on the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 24, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo
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Hamas Accuses Israeli Spies of Killing Tunisian Drone Engineer

A member of the Palestinian security forces, loyal to Hamas, stands guard as men set up a barbed wire on the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 24, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo
A member of the Palestinian security forces, loyal to Hamas, stands guard as men set up a barbed wire on the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 24, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo

Hamas movement reiterated on Thursday that the Israeli Mossad was behind the killing of its drone engineer Mohammad al-Zawari in Tunisia's second city Sfax last December.

"Mossad is officially accused of being behind the assassination, which is not only a terrorist act, but a violation of state sovereignty," Mohammed Nazzal, a Hamas politburo member, said at a press conference in Beirut.

According to Nazzal, Zawari’s assassination was meticulously planned over three stages in 2015 and involved 12 individuals.

He said an investigation concluded that agents from Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had operated in Tunisia over several months, including pretending to be foreign journalists in order to get close to Zawari.

The main two assassins who entered the country before the killing were using Bosnian passports, Nazzal said.

Zawari, 49, was murdered at the wheel of his car outside his house in Sfax on December 15 last 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.