• Senior Palestinian official, family members killed in Israeli air strike
• Polio drive for Gaza children extended for a day
• Several houses blown up in Zeitoun area

CAIRO: In a first-of-its-kind incident indicating to growing risks of the conflict spreading to other parts of the region, a man from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at a border crossing, while an air strike on a Jabalia house on Sunday left a senior Gaza official dead, taking the death toll among Palestinians to 40,972 since Israel launched its military offensive on Oct 7.

According to Israeli authorities, the gunman from Jordan killed three Israeli workers at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in the occupied West Bank before forces shot him dead.

The attack took place in a commercial cargo area under Israeli control where Jordanian trucks offload cargo entering the West Bank, officials said. The crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, lies about midway between Amman and Jerusalem.

The assailant was a 39-year-old truck driver who came from the influential Huwaitat tribe in southern Jordan, according to family members.

Jordan was investigating the shooting and a Jordanian official said the crossing has been closed.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties. Dozens of trailers cross daily from Jordan, with goods from Jordan and the Gulf that supply both the West Bank and Israeli markets.

Besides, an Israeli air strike on a house in Jabalia killed Mohammad Morsi, deputy director of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service (GCES) in the Gaza Strip, and four of his family, health officials said.

The GCES said in a statement that Morsi’s death raised to 83 the number of its members killed by Israeli fire since Oct 7.

Residents said Israeli forces had also blown up several houses in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, 5km from Jabalia.

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Medical teams said they were unable to answer desperate calls by some of the residents who had reported being trapped inside their houses, some wounded.

“We hear constant bombing in Zeitoun, we know they are blowing up houses there, we don’t sleep because of the sounds of explosions, the roaring of tanks sound close and the drones don’t stop circling,” said one resident of Gaza City.

“The occupation is wiping out Zeitoun, we are afraid about the people trapped in there,” he told Reuters via a chat app.

At least 40,972 Palestinians have been killed and 94,761 others injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since Oct 7, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Israel and Hamas continued to blame one another for the failure of mediators, including Qatar, Egypt and the US, to broker a ceasefire.

The US is preparing to present a new proposal, but the prospects of a breakthrough appear dim as gaps between the sides’ positions remain large.

Polio campaign

Meanwhile, on Sunday the United Nations, in collaboration with local health authorities, extended by a day a campaign to vaccinate children in the southern Gaza Strip against polio before it moves on Monday to the north.

The campaign aims to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio case in around 25 years. Limited pauses in the fighting have allowed the campaign to proceed.

UN officials said they were making progress, having reached more than half of the children needing the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2024