The Israeli army continued its assault on the Gaza Strip, killing several Palestinians in attacks on Gaza City in the north and Khan Younis in the south.
At least 19 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza in recent hours, including five members of the same family in an attack on the al-Mawasi “safe area”, according to Al Jazeera.
Two Palestinians were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli attack on Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Wafa news agency reported. Civil defense teams said Israeli forces targeted a tent housing displaced people in the al-Attar area of the city.
According to Wafa, Israeli forces bombed a shelter for displaced people in the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, killing at least two people and injuring many others.
At least six people, including three children and a woman, have been confirmed dead after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. Gaza's civil defense agency said the Israeli army bombed the Bustan family home in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City. Several people were injured in the attack and several others remain missing under the rubble.
Meanwhile, the first phase of the UN-led campaign to vaccinate Gaza’s children against polio has officially ended. Some 560,000 children received their first dose in 12 days. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed the success of the UN polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.
In other related developments, Arab countries and the EU called on the international community to take positive steps to implement a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, including the recognition of the State of Palestine worldwide.
The call came after a meeting of top diplomats in the Spanish capital Madrid. The conference, hosted by Spain on September 13, was attended by top diplomats from Norway and Slovenia, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and members of the Arab-Islamic Contact Group for Gaza, which includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey.
The ministers called for the "credible, irreversible" implementation of the two-state solution, stressing that it was "the only way to establish lasting peace and security" for Israelis and Palestinians.
The two-state solution, proposed at the Madrid Conference in 1991 and the Oslo Accords in 1993-1995, has long been considered by the international community as the best way to resolve the decades-long conflict. However, the peace process has been stalled for years.
The search for a peaceful solution has become more urgent as Israel’s 11-month war in the Gaza Strip has been the bloodiest phase of the entire conflict to date, and violence has also escalated in the West Bank.
