World
India to begin clinical trials for Covd-19 vaccine in children
Dhaka, May 19 (UNB)-Bharat Biotech is set to begin the phase II and III clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin in children in the age group of 2 to 18 years in the next 10-12 days, reports The Economics Times citing VK Paul, Member (Health), Niti Aayog on Tuesday.
"Covaxin has been approved by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), for Phase II/III clinical trials in the age group of 2 to 18 years. I have been told that trials will begin in the next 10-12 days," Paul said during a press conference.
Covaxin received the DCGI nod to conduct clinical trials in children on May 11.The Niti Ayog official further stated that the anti-COVID drug '2DG' developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has been granted permission for emergency use by the DCGI.
He also mentioned that the anti-COVID drug will be examined by the COVID-19 National Task Force for adding it to the treatment protocol.
"We will examine the drug in COVID-19 National Task Force for adding it to the treatment protocol. DCGI has granted permission for emergency use," said Paul.
Hours after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal stated that the new COVID variant detected in Singapore is "deadly for children" and may bring in third wave of the disease in the country, Paul reassured that children will not get serious COVID-19 infection, adding that the situation is being closely monitored and reports referring to the variant are being examined.
"We are examining the report you are referring to about a particular variant. Regarding COVID-19 among children, it is being reassured that they do not get serious infection. We are keeping an eye on this," he said.
Amid concerns of a third wave of COVID-19 in the country, which according to many health experts is likely to target children, the Delhi Chief Minister requested the Central government to immediately suspend air services with Singapore and to work out vaccination options for children on priority.
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India’s Covid-19 hot spots on recovery road
Dhaka, May 19 (UNB)-The punishing second wave of the coronavirus disease is receding in 19 Indian states and Union territories, some of which were its early epicentres, although some new hot spots have emerged in the south and the North-East where infections continue to surge,a Hindustan Times analysis show that some of India’s Covid-19 hot spots are on recovery road:
According to HT’s report, seven out of every 10 Indians live in the regions seeing an improvement. Among the 19 are Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, some of which were ravaged by the second wave with the health care systems of most being overwhelmed by a rush of hospitalisations.
This trend comes as a glimmer of hope even as the Covid-19 toll continue to rise to grim new records. Daily deaths from the disease have remained above the 4,000 mark in the last four days despite a drop in new cases over the past week. To be sure, any drop in case trajectory generally take 14 days to reflect on daily deaths as studies have shown that the median time between someone testing positive for Covid-19 and dying from it is around 13.8 days.
The average weekly positivity rate – proportion of samples tested that return positive for Covid-19 – has gone down in states and UTs that are home to 69% of the country’s population, while 15 states and UTs, home to the remaining 31%, have seen an increase between May 7 and May 17, data shows.
Experts said that this drop in positivity rate is largely due to the application of non-pharmaceutical interventions like lockdowns, and that while cases are declining in most regions, actions taken to control the spread of the disease cannot be weakened just yet.
Areas in the country’s south and North-East, which fared relatively better than the rest of the country during the worst of the second wave though April, are now seeing positivity rate climb the most. Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, along with north-eastern states such as Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh, feature among the regions that have seen positivity rate rise the most between May 7 and 17.
The analysis took the positivity rate data from the first week of May (week ending May 7) as the base for comparison as it was perhaps India’s worst week in terms of cases – the seven-day averages of positivity rate and daily infections both peaked around this time in the country. At the government’s Covid briefing on Tuesday, health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal said that daily cases have been declining since May 7.
All positivity rate figures mentioned here are seven-day averages as it evens out inaccuracies in testing over weekends.
A rising positivity rate in a region indicates that the virus is spreading fast within the community. As a rule of thumb, tracking a region’s positivity rate serves as a good barometer for whether cases are going to increase or decrease in the coming days: a rising positivity rate generally means cases will rise in the immediate future, while a dropping positivity rate tends to precede a drop in new infections.
Importantly, this trend has sustained without daily tests going down in the majority of the country. In fact, the number of daily tests in the country have increased 5% between May 7 and May 17 – on average, a total of 1,813,242 samples were tested every day in the country in the past week, against 1,724,665 on May 7.
Regions with best improvement
Delhi saw India’s biggest change in average positivity rate in the past 10 days – there was a 14.3 percentage point drop between May 7 and May 17 (from 27.4% to 13.1%). It was followed by Chhattisgarh, where the positivity rate dropped 13.2 percentage points, from 25.4% to 12.2% in the same time period, and Haryana, where it dropped 10.4 percentage points.
Goa features in the fourth spot in terms of most improved positivity rate (drop of 9.8 percentage points), but despite the drop, the state still has the highest positivity rate in the country. In the past week, more than a third (36.5%) of all samples tested in the state have returned positive for Covid-19. The coastal state has been in the news over the past two weeks due to severe shortage of hospital beds and medical oxygen resulting in dozens of deaths. But a drop in positivity rate offers the region some much-needed light at the end of the tunnel.
Other regions that have seen significant improvements in positivity rate are Jharkhand (a fall of 8percentage points, from 15% to 7.0%), Bihar (down 7.5 percentage points, from 14.8% to 7.2%), Madhya Pradesh ( 19.3% to 12%), Maharashtra (down 6 percentage points from 21.7% to 15.6%) and Uttar Pradesh (down 6 points, from 11.9% to 5.9%). Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh are four of India’s five most populous states – together housing more than 40% of the country’s population.
This phenomenon is clearly reflected in the drastic reduction on the load on India’s health care system in these regions. Pleas for help on social media for life-saving resources like hospital beds, medicines, oxygen, even ambulances had become commonplace towards the peak of the outbreak in regions such as Delhi, Maharashtra and UP. Over the past 10 days, the shortage of supply in these regions have dropped.
Nagaland, meanwhile, is the only north-eastern state where positivity rate is dropping (down 0.9 percentage points, from 21.7% on May 7 to 20.8% on May 17).
States and UTs with rising transmission
A majority of India’s south and the northeast, meanwhile, is at the other end of the spectrum. In Meghalaya, the positivity rate rose from 11.1% to 17.7% between May 7 and May 17 – a rise of 6.7 percentage points, the highest in India. It was followed by Andhra Pradesh, where positivity rate jumped from 18.7% to 24.4% (up 5.8 percentage points), and Tamil Nadu (from 15.2% to 19.8%, up 4.7 percentage points). Manipur (14.2% to 18.3%) and Karnataka (28.4% to 32.4%) both saw positivity rate go up 4.1 percentage points. Sikkim and Karnataka registered the second and third highest positivity rate in the past week – 32.6% and 32.4% respectively. Sikkim has seen the sixth highest rise in positivity rate in the past 10 days – of 3.4 percentage points.
Other states with high positivity rate (and rising) are Kerala (up 0.4 percentage points to 26.9%) and Odisha (up 0.4% to 20.9%).
One state and two UTs – Mizoram, Lakshadweep and Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli – were excluded from the analysis due to unavailability of consistent testing data.
During health ministry’s weekly Covid-19 briefing on Tuesday, Niti Aayog member (health) VK Paul said, “We have to be very mindful that when we are achieving declining positivity rate it is because of the results of what we are doing and that cannot be slackened. We cannot again let this go out of hand again.”
“In many states the pandemic curve is stabilising, as a result of comprehensive efforts at containment, at testing, restrictions, and all the other efforts that people of those states are carrying out -- the states such as Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and so on,” he said. He added that there were still a few states where there continues to be concern such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, among others. “It is a mixed picture but there is overall stabilisation, and what we know from scientific analysis that the reproduction number (R0) is overall below 1 now,” said Paul.
Experts, however, say it is too early to let the guard down. “While most governments were reluctant to enforce lockdowns, it appears those measures are now starting to yield results... It is not a good time to celebrate decrease in numbers as we are dealing with an infectious disease and it is way too early to say which direction the spread is going to take, especially since the disease has reached rural and tribal areas where health infrastructure is weak and it won’t be able to test each and every individual there,” said Dr Lalit Kant, former head of epidemiology at the Indian Council of Medical Research.
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‘City in transition’: New York vies to turn page on pandemic
More than a year after coronavirus shutdowns sent “the city that never sleeps” into a fitful slumber, New York could be wide awake again this summer.
Starting Wednesday, vaccinated New Yorkers can shed their masks in most situations, and restaurants, stores, gyms and many other businesses can go back to full capacity if they check vaccination cards or apps for proof that all patrons have been inoculated.
Subways resumed running round-the-clock this week. Midnight curfews for bars and restaurants will be gone by month’s end. Broadway tickets are on sale again, though the curtain won’t rise on any shows until September.
Officials say now is New York’s moment to shake off the image of a city brought to its knees by the virus last spring — a recovery poignantly rendered on the latest cover of The New Yorker magazine. It shows a giant door part-open to the city skyline, letting in a ray of light.
Read:Biden boosting world vaccine sharing commitment to 80M doses
Is the Big Apple back to its old, brash self?
“Maybe 75%. ... It’s definitely coming back to life,” said Mark Kumar, 24, a personal trainer.
But Ameen Deen, 63, said: “A full sense of normalcy is not going to come any time soon. There’s far too many deaths. There’s too much suffering. There’s too much inequality.”
Last spring, the biggest city in America was also the nation’s deadliest coronavirus hotspot, the site of over 21,000 deaths in just two months. Black and Hispanic patients have died at markedly higher rates than whites and Asian Americans.
Hospitals overflowed with patients and corpses. Refrigerated trailers served as temporary morgues, and tents were set up in Central Park as a COVID-19 ward. New York’s hectic streets fell quiet, save for ambulance sirens and nightly bursts of cheering from apartment windows for health care workers.
After a year of ebbs, surges, reopenings and closings, the city hopes vaccinations are turning the tide for good. About 47% of residents have had at least one dose so far. Deaths have amounted to about two dozen a day in recent weeks, and new cases and hospitalizations have plummeted from a wintertime wave.
Large swaths of the country and world are also starting to get back to normal after a crisis blamed for 3.4 million deaths globally, including more than 587,000 in the U.S.
Las Vegas casinos are returning to 100% capacity and no social distancing requirements. Disneyland in California opened up late last month after being shuttered for more than 400 days. Massachusetts this week announced that all virus restrictions will expire Memorial Day weekend.
Summer music festivals like Lollapalooza are back on, the Indy 500 is bracing for more than 100,000 fans, and the federal government says fully vaccinated adults no longer need to wear masks.
France is opening back up on Wednesday as well, with the Eiffel Tower, Parisian cafes and cinemas and the Louvre bringing back visitors for the first time in months.
Read:Pfizer COVID-19 shot expanded to US children as young as 12
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared it the “summer of New York City.”
There are other signs New York is regaining its bustle. Some 80,000 city employees returned to their offices at least part time this month, joining the many municipal workers whose jobs never were done remotely.
Subway and commuter rail ridership is averaging about 40% of normal after plunging to 10% last spring, when the subway system began closing for several hours overnight for the first time in its more than 115-year history.
Shakeem Brown, an artist and delivery person who works late in Manhattan, spent up to three hours a night commuting back to his Queens apartment before 24/7 service resumed Monday. Brown, 26, said it’s “refreshing” to see things opening up.
At e’s Bar on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, “we feel the energy” of social life ramping up, co-owner Erin Bellard said. “People are so excited to be out.”
Still, receipts at the bar and grill have been down about 35% because of pandemic restrictions on hours and capacity, she said. The impending end of the midnight curfew will give the bar two more crucial hours, and the owners are planning to survey patrons to determine whether to regain full capacity by requiring vaccinations.
From other vantage points, “normal” looks farther off.
The sidewalks and skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan, for instance, are still noticeably empty. Big corporate employers largely aren’t looking to bring more workers back until fall, and only if they feel it’s safe, said Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a major employers group.
“Shutting down was easy. Reopening is hard,” Wylde said after a meeting last week with a group of CEOs. “All the employers say that there still is fear and some resistance to coming back.”
Besides virus fears, companies and workers are wondering about safety, she said.
Crime in the city has become a growing source of concern, but it’s a complicated picture. Murders, shootings, felony assaults and auto thefts rose in the first four months of this year compared with the same period in pre-pandemic 2019, but robberies and grand larcenies fell. So did crime in the transit system, probably because of the drop in ridership.
Read:COVID’s US toll projected to drop sharply by the end of July
Brandon Goldgrub has been back at his midtown office since July, but it’s just in the last few weeks that he has noticed the sidewalks seem a bit crowded again.
“Now I feel it’s a lot more normal,” said Goldgrub, 30, a property manager.
Visiting from Tallahassee, Florida, Jessica Souva looked around midtown and felt hopeful about the city where she used to live.
“All we heard, elsewhere in the country, was that New York was a ghost town, and this doesn’t feel like that,” said Souva, 47. “It feels like a city in transition.”
Israeli airstrikes kill 6, level large family home in Gaza
Israeli airstrikes killed at least six people across the Gaza Strip and destroyed the home of a large extended family early on Wednesday. The military said it widened its strikes on militant targets to the south amid continuing rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory.
Residents surveyed the piles of bricks, concrete and other debris that had once been the home of 40 members of al-Astal family. They said a warning missile struck the building in the southern town of Khan Younis five minutes before the airstrike, allowing everyone to escape.
Ahmed al-Astal, a university professor, described a scene of panic before the airstrike hit, with men, women and children racing out of the building in various states of undress.
“We had just gotten down to the street, breathless, when the devastating bombardment came,” he said. “They left nothing but destruction, the children’s cries filling the street... This is happening and there is no one to help us. We ask God to help us.”
Read:AP source: US encouraging Israel to wind down Gaza offensive
The Israeli military said it struck militant targets around the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah, with 52 aircraft hitting 40 underground targets over a period of 25 minutes. Gaza’s Health Ministry said a woman was killed and eight people were wounded in those strikes.
Hamas-run Al-Aqsa radio said one of its reporters was killed in an airstrike in Gaza City. Doctors at the Shifa hospital said his was among five bodies brought in early Wednesday. The fatalities included two people killed when warning missiles crashed into their apartment.
The latest strikes came as diplomatic efforts aimed at a cease-fire gathered strength and Gaza’s infrastructure, already weakened by a 14-year blockade, rapidly deteriorated. The Palestinian territory is ruled by Hamas, an Islamic militant group.
U.S. officials said the Biden administration was privately encouraging Israel to wind down its bombardment of Gaza. Egyptian negotiators also were working to halt the fighting, and while they have not made progress with Israel, they were optimistic international pressure would force it to the table, according to an Egyptian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing diplomatic efforts.
The fighting began May 10 when Hamas fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.
At least 219 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes, including 63 children and 36 women, with 1,530 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians. Hamas and Islamic Jihad say at least 20 of their fighters have been killed, while Israel says the number is at least 130.
Twelve people in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy, have been killed in rocket attacks so far. A rocket attack on Tuesday near Gaza killed two Thai workers and wounded another seven. The Israeli military said rockets also were fired at the Erez pedestrian crossing and at the Kerem Shalom crossing, where humanitarian aid was being brought into Gaza, forcing both to close. It said a soldier was slightly wounded at Erez.
Read:Palestinians go on strike as Israel-Hamas fighting rages
The Israeli military has launched hundreds of airstrikes it says are targeting Hamas’ militant infrastructure, while Palestinian militants have fired more than 3,700 rockets at Israel, with some 550 falling short. Israel says its air defenses have a 90% interception rate.
Medical supplies, fuel and water are running low in Gaza, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Some 58,000 Palestinians have fled their homes.
Israeli attacks have damaged at least 18 hospitals and clinics and destroyed one health facility, the World Health Organization said. Nearly half of all essential drugs have run out.
The Gaza Health Ministry said it had salvaged coronavirus vaccines after shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike damaged the territory’s only testing facility, which also administered hundreds of vaccines. The medical operation was relocated to another clinic.
The WHO said the bombing of key roads, including those leading to the main Shifa Hospital, has hindered ambulances and supply vehicles in Gaza, which was already struggling to cope with a coronavirus outbreak.
Among the buildings leveled by Israeli airstrikes was one housing The Associated Press’ Gaza office and those of other media outlets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged that Hamas military intelligence was operating in the building. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that Israel had given the U.S. information about the bombing, without elaborating.
Read:Gaza children bearing the brunt in Israel-Hamas conflict
AP President Gary Pruitt has reiterated calls for an independent investigation of the attack. Pruitt has said the AP had no indication Hamas was present in the building and that “this is something we check as best we can.”
Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories meanwhile observed a general strike Tuesday in a rare collective action spanning boundaries central to decades of failed peace efforts. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for their future state.
Although the strike was peaceful in many places, with shops in east Jerusalem’s usually bustling Old City markets shuttered, violence erupted in the occupied West Bank.
Hundreds of Palestinians burned tires in Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered, and hurled stones at an Israeli military checkpoint. Three protesters were killed and more than 140 wounded in clashes with Israeli troops in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and other cities, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli army said two soldiers were wounded in Ramallah by gunshots to the leg.
Restrictions reimposed as virus resurges in much of Asia
Taxi drivers are starved for customers, weddings are suddenly canceled, schools are closed, and restaurant service is restricted across much of Asia as the coronavirus makes a resurgence in countries where it had seemed to be well under control.
Sparsely populated Mongolia has seen its death toll soar from 15 to 233, while Taiwan, considered a major success in battling the virus, has recorded more than 1,000 cases since last week and placed over 600,000 people in two-week medical isolation.
Hong Kong and Singapore have postponed a quarantine-free travel bubble for a second time after an outbreak in Singapore of uncertain origin. China, which has all but stamped out local infections, has seen new cases apparently linked to contact with people arriving from abroad.
The resurgence hasn’t come close to the carnage wrought in India and parts of Europe, but it is a keen reminder that the virus remains resilient, despite strict mask mandates, case tracing, mass testing and wider deployment of the newest weapon against it — vaccinations.
Read:COVID-19 cases rise to 25,228,996 in India, highest daily death toll recorded
That’s setting back efforts to get social and economic life back to normal, particularly in schools and sectors like the hospitality industry that are built on public contact.
In Taiwan, the surge is being driven by the more easily transmissible variant first identified in Britain, according to Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist and the island’s former vice president, who led the highly praised pandemic response last year.
Complicating matters are some senior citizens who frequent slightly racy “tea salons” in Taipei’s Wanhua neighborhood. They accounted for about 375 of the new cases as of Tuesday, Chen said. The tea shops are known for providing adult entertainment with singing and dancing.
“These seniors, when they go to these places, want to keep it veiled,” Chen said. “When we are conducting the investigation, they may not be honest.”
In Wanhua, normally a bustling area with food stalls, shops and entertainment venues, the Huaxi night market and historic Longshan Buddhist temple are closed.
Kao Yu-chieh, who runs a breakfast shop in the area, said business is down at least 50% since last week.
Cab driver Wang Hsian Jhong said he hasn’t had a customer in three days. “Everyone is affected. This is a Taiwan-wide problem. We have to get through it,” he said, puffing on a cigarette on a street in Wanhua.
Schools, gyms and pools are closed in Taipei, and gatherings of more than five people indoors and more than 10 people outdoors are banned. The island shut all schools starting Wednesday.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has sought to reassure a public that is reverting to panic-buying and shunning public places.
“We will continue to strengthen our medical capacity,” Tsai said, adding that vaccines are arriving from abroad.
Malaysia unexpectedly imposed a one-month lockdown through June 7, spooked by a sharp rise in cases, more-infectious variants and weak public compliance with health measures.
Read:Coronavirus: Taiwan has another jump, capital closing schools
It was the second nationwide lockdown in just over a year and came after the country’s cases shot up fourfold since January; it’s now more than 479,000 and 1,994 people have died, a sum also up by four times from January. Interstate travel and social activities are banned, schools are shut, and restaurants can provide only takeout service. The government has warned that hospitals have almost maxed out their capacity to take new coronavirus cases.
Singapore has imposed stringent social distancing measures until June 13, restricting public gatherings to two people and banning dine-in service at restaurants.
That came after the number of coronavirus infections of untraceable origin rose to 48 cases in the past week, from 10 cases the week before. Singapore had previously been held up as a role model after keeping the virus at bay for months.
Schools moved online after students in several institutions tested positive. Wedding receptions are no longer allowed, and funerals are capped at 20 people.
For wedding planner Michelle Lau, at least seven clients either canceled or postponed weddings meant to take place over the next month. Other couples have opted for a simple ceremony without a reception, she said.
Janey Chang, who runs two Latin dance studios in Singapore, says that the tougher restrictions have drastically reduced class size.
“We are taking on fewer students, but the costs such as rent remain the same,” Chang said. “Whether we can continue to operate is highly dependent on the number of coronavirus cases.”
Hong Kong has responded to fresh outbreaks by increasing the quarantine requirement from 14 to 21 days for unvaccinated travelers arriving from “high-risk” countries, including Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, and, farther afield, Argentina, Italy, the Netherlands and Kenya.
China has set up checkpoints at toll booths, airports and railway stations in Liaoning province, where new cases were reported this week. Travelers must have proof of a recent negative virus test, and mass testing was ordered in part of Yingkou, a port city with shipping connections to more than 40 countries.
Thailand reported 35 deaths, the highest since the outbreak started, on Tuesday, and an additional 29 on Wednesday. That brought its number of fatalities to 678, of which 584 have been reported in the latest wave. About three-quarters of Thailand’s more than 116,000 cases have been recorded since the beginning of April.
Thailand had about 7,100 cases in all of last year in what was regarded as a success story.
The resurgence has posed difficult choices for governments, particularly in poorer nations where lockdown restrictions can increase financial suffering for those already living on the edge of starvation.
Read:Indonesia suspends AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine batch after death
In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has eased a lockdown in the bustling capital and adjacent provinces to fight economic recession and hunger but has still barred public gatherings this month, when many Roman Catholic festivals are held.
COVID-19 infections started to spike in March to some of the worst levels in Asia, surging beyond 10,000 a day and prompting Duterte to impose the lockdown in and around Manila in April. The Philippines has reported more than 1.1 million infections with 19,372 deaths, though the surge has begun to ease.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the partial resumption of economic activities, increased noncompliance with restrictions and inadequate tracing of people exposed to the virus combined to spark the steep rise in infections.
Experts said the delivery of vaccines, however delayed and small in amount, also fostered false confidence the pandemic might be ending.
AP source: US encouraging Israel to wind down Gaza offensive
President Joe Biden and administration officials have encouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials to wind down the bombardment of Gaza, a person with knowledge of the discussions said Tuesday, as the Israeli and Palestinian death tolls mounted and pressure grew on Biden to move more forcefully to stop the fighting.
Top Biden administration officials underscored to the Israelis on Monday and Tuesday that time is not on their side in terms of international objections to nine days of Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rockets, and that it is in their interest to wind down the operations soon, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the private talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The account shows Biden administration officials going further privately in messaging to Netanyahu than they have previously revealed. A White House readout of a Biden call to Netanyahu on Monday said Biden had expressed support for a cease-fire, but said nothing about the U.S. urging Israel to bring fighting to a close.
The fighting has killed at least 213 Palestinians and 12 people in Israel, and tested both Biden’s reluctance to publicly criticize Israel and his administration’s determination not to bog down its foreign policy focus in Middle East hot spots.
Read:Palestinians go on strike as Israel-Hamas fighting rages
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration to show any results from what it is calling its quiet diplomacy to stop the new Israeli-Hamas battles. Ambassador Riyad Mansour pointed to the U.S. repeatedly blocking a U.N. Security Council action on the conflict, and he urged the Biden administration to do more.
“If the Biden administration can exert all of their pressure to bring an end to the aggression against our people, nobody is going to stand in their way,” Mansour said.
France, in consultation with Egypt and Jordan, on Tuesday was preparing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire, Zhang Jun, China’s U.N. ambassador, and other diplomats told reporters. The move to put the U.N.’s most powerful body behind a demand for Israel and Hamas to stop hostilities came after the U.S. repeatedly blocked what would have been a unanimous Security Council statement expressing concern about the fighting.
The White House has so far resisted the calls for ramping up public pressure on Netanyahu. It has made the calculation that Israelis will not respond to international resolutions or public demands by the U.S. and that its greatest leverage is behind-the-scenes pressure, according to the person familiar with the administration’s discussions.
The person said that the Israelis have signaled that it is possible their military campaign could end in a matter of days.
The effort to press U.S. ally Israel to find an endgame to the military campaign in Gaza came amid a split this week among House Democrats on whether to step up pressure for a cease-fire and call for more forceful U.S. diplomacy to end the fighting.
Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee weighed — but on Tuesday shelved — writing Biden to demand that he delay a pending $735 million sale of precision-guided missiles to Israel.
Read:Gaza children bearing the brunt in Israel-Hamas conflict
Dozens of progressive and mainstream Democratic lawmakers already have called for a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas militants, and some Democrats are demanding Biden push harder for an end to fighting.
Committee member Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, was among the Democrats seeking a harder line, saying he has “serious concerns about the timing of this weapons sale, the message it will send to Israel and the world about the urgency of a cease fire.” He said late Monday that the Biden administration “must use every diplomatic tool to de-escalate this conflict and bring about peace.”
Committee chair Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. said the lawmakers expect an administration briefing Wednesday on the crisis. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Tuesday acknowledged the difference between a growing number of progressive Democrats and the Biden administration on the U.S. approach to the conflict, but played it down.
“Every Democrat, and I think every Republican, wants to minimize the exposure of both sides in Gaza and in Israel,” Hoyer told reporters. “There’s a difference about how that can be done.”
Biden did not join in the calls by some of his party’s lawmakers and by many foreign governments to demand a cease-fire, however.
In talks with the Israelis, administration officials have pointed to Hezbollah’s stature rising in the region after their 34-day war with Israel in 2006 to make the case for limiting the time of the military action. But Israeli officials have argued to the administration that a slightly prolonged campaign to degrade Hamas’ military capabilities is necessary and in their interest, according to the person familiar with the talks. Hamas operates in the crowded Gaza Strip, a 25-by-6-mile (40-by-10-kilometer) territory crowded with more than 2 million people.
Hamas has sought to portray their rocket barrages as a defense of Jerusalem. The Israelis have made the case to Biden administration officials that that message is losing resonance as mob violence against Arabs in mixed Israeli cities, including Lod, has been tamped down.
Read:US reaches out to Arab leaders on Israel, Gaza fighting
Administration officials are defending Biden’s decision to avoid ratcheting up public pressure on Israel for its role in the fighting. The U.S. this week killed a proposed U.N. Security Council statement that would have expressed concern for civilian deaths and raised the issue of a cease-fire.
“The president has been doing this long enough ... to know sometimes diplomacy has to happen behind the scenes,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday.
She spoke as Biden headed to a Ford electric vehicle site in Michigan to promote a green infrastructure plan.
Pressure on the White House to do more in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dogged the trip, with protesters in communities with large populations of Arab Americans shouting condemnation of Biden.
Palestinians go on strike as Israel-Hamas fighting rages
Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territories went on strike in a rare collective protest Tuesday as Israeli missiles toppled a building in Gaza and militants in the Hamas-ruled territory fired dozens of rockets that killed two people.
The demonstrations and ongoing violence came as moves toward a cease-fire appeared to be gaining more traction.
U.S. officials said the Biden administration was privately encouraging Israel to wind down its bombardment of Gaza. Egyptian negotiators also were working to halt the fighting, and while they have not made progress with Israel, they were optimistic international pressure would force it to the table, according to an Egyptian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing diplomatic efforts.
The general strike was a sign that the war could widen again after a spasm of communal violence in Israel and protests across the occupied West Bank last week.
Read:Gaza children bearing the brunt in Israel-Hamas conflict
Although the strike was peaceful in many places, with shops in Jerusalem’s usually bustling Old City markets shuttered, violence erupted in cities in the West Bank.
Hundreds of Palestinians burned tires in Ramallah and hurled stones at an Israeli military checkpoint. Troops fired tear gas, and protesters picked up some of the canisters and threw them back. Three protesters were killed and more than 140 wounded in clashes with Israeli troops in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and other cities, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli army said two soldiers were wounded by gunshots to the leg.
The general strike was an uncommon show of unity by Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20% of its population, and those in the territories Israel seized in 1967 that the Palestinians have long sought for a future state.
The strike was intended to protest the war and Israeli policies that many activists and some rights groups say constitute an overarching system of apartheid that denies Palestinians rights afforded to Jews. Israel rejects that characterization, saying its citizens have equal rights. It blames the war on Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, and accuses it of inciting violence.
Leaders of the Palestinian community in Israel called the strike, which was embraced by the internationally backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, where ministries and schools were closed. Most businesses appeared to be observing the strike.
Strike organizer Muhammad Barakeh said Palestinians are standing against Israeli “aggression” in Gaza and Jerusalem, as well as “brutal repression” by police.
The war has also seen an unusual outbreak of violence in Israel, with groups of Jewish and Palestinian citizens fighting in the streets and torching vehicles and buildings. In both Israel and the West Bank, Palestinian protesters have clashed with Israeli forces. Scores have been injured, including a Jewish man who died Monday after being attacked last week by a group of Arabs in the central city of Lod.
The fighting began May 10 when Hamas fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.
At least 217 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes, including 63 children, with more than 1,500 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians. Hamas and Islamic Jihad say at least 20 of their fighters have been killed, while Israel says the number is at least 130.
Twelve people in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy, have been killed in rocket attacks.
Read:US reaches out to Arab leaders on Israel, Gaza fighting
Tuesday’s rocket attack from Gaza hit a packaging plant in a region bordering the territory, killing two Thai workers. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it took another seven to the hospital. Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said the wounded were also Thai.
The Israeli military said rockets also were fired at the Erez pedestrian crossing and at the Kerem Shalom crossing, where humanitarian aid was being brought into Gaza, forcing both to close. It said a soldier was slightly wounded at Erez.
Israeli airstrikes into Gaza demolished a six-story building housing bookstores and educational centers used by the Islamic University and other colleges. Desks, office chairs, books and wires could be seen in the debris. Israel warned its occupants beforehand, sending them fleeing before dawn. There were no reports of casualties.
The Israeli military has launched hundreds of airstrikes it says are targeting Hamas’ militant infrastructure, while Palestinian militants have fired more than 3,400 rockets from civilian areas in Gaza at civilian targets in Israel.
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the military was focusing on destroying the tunnels where Hamas fighters hide, move between locations and resupply launchers with rockets to fire at Israel.
The tunnels run under civilian neighborhoods, and Israeli airstrikes have been trying to target roads above them to minimize damage to buildings, Conricus said. One weekend airstrike that Israel said targeted a tunnel caused several buildings to collapse and killed 42 people in the deadliest single attack of the conflict.
The attacks on the tunnels continue, “and the assessment is that that effort will be expanded to areas that we so far have not conducted this effort in, and that is to be expected over the coming days,” he said.
Medical supplies, fuel and water are running low in Gaza, which is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Nearly 47,000 Palestinians have fled their homes.
Israeli attacks have damaged at least 18 hospitals and clinics and destroyed one health facility, the World Health Organization said. Nearly half of all essential drugs in the territory have run out.
Read:Israel, Hamas trade fire in Gaza; Palestinians go on strike
The WHO said the bombing of key roads, including those leading to the main Shifa Hospital, has hindered ambulances and supply vehicles in Gaza, which was already struggling to cope with a coronavirus outbreak.
Among the buildings leveled by Israeli airstrikes was one housing The Associated Press Gaza office and those of other media outlets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged that Hamas military intelligence was operating in the building. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday in Iceland that Israel had given the U.S. information about the bombing. Blinken declined to characterize the material, and Israel has not publicly provided evidence of its claim.
AP President Gary Pruitt reiterated calls for an independent investigation of the attack.
Indian navy searches for 78 missing from barge sunk by storm
Indian navy ships and helicopters searched in extreme weather and rough seas Wednesday for 78 people still missing from a barge that sank off Mumbai as a deadly cyclone blew ashore this week.
Navy Cdr. Alok Anand said 183 people were rescued within 24 hours by the three ships and helicopters engaged in the operation.
A survivor told the New Delhi Television news channel that he jumped into the sea with his life jacket and was later picked up by the navy.
In another operation, a navy helicopter rescued 35 crew members of another barge, GAL Constructor, which ran aground north of Mumbai, a government statement said.
Read:India scours sea after barge sinks, 2nd adrift after cyclone
Both barges were working for Oil and Natural Gas Corp., the largest crude oil and natural gas company in India.
The company said the barges were carrying personnel deployed for offshore drilling and their anchors gave away during the storm.
Cyclone Tauktae, the most powerful storm to hit the region in more than two decades, packed sustained winds of up to 210 kilometers (130 miles) per hour when it came ashore in Gujarat state late Monday. The storm left at least 25 dead in Gujarat and Maharashtra states.
The Hindu newspaper Wednesday tallied more than 16,000 houses damaged in Gujarat state and trees and power poles uprooted.
The cyclone has weakened into a depression centered over the south of Rajasthan state and adjoining Gujarat region, a statement by the Indian Meteorological Department said on Wednesday.
In Nepal, authorities on Tuesday asked mountaineers to descend from high altitudes because the storm system may bring severe weather.
Hundreds of climbers, guides and staff are on various mountains in Nepal, trying to climb the peaks this month when weather is usually most favorable in the high altitudes. Nepal has eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks, including Mount Everest.
Read:Powerful cyclone hits land in India amid deadly virus surge
The Department of Tourism in a statement Tuesday asked climbers and outfitting agencies to monitor the weather and stay safe.
In 2014, snowstorms and avalanches triggered by a cyclone in India killed 43 people in Nepal’s mountains in the worst hiking disaster in the Himalayan nation.
The snowstorms were believed to be whipped by the tail end of a cyclone that hit the Indian coast a few days earlier.
The blizzards swept through the popular Annapurna trekking route and hikers were caught off-guard when the weather changed quickly.
Gaza children bearing the brunt in Israel-Hamas conflict
Suzy Ishkontana hardly speaks or eats. It’s been two days since the 7-year-old girl was pulled from the rubble of what was once her family’s home, destroyed amid a barrage of Israeli airstrikes. She spent hours buried in the wreckage as her siblings and mother died around her.
Children are being subjected to extensive trauma in Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip. For some, it’s trauma they’ve seen repeatedly throughout their short lives.
This is the fourth time in 12 years Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers have gone to war. Each time, Israel has unleashed heavy airstrikes at the densely populated Gaza Strip as it vows to stop Hamas rocket barrages launched toward Israel.
According to Gaza health officials, at least 63 children are among the 217 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza since the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas began on May 10. On the Israeli side, 12 people have been killed by Hamas rockets, all but one of them civilians, including a 5-year-old boy.
Read:US reaches out to Arab leaders on Israel, Gaza fighting
Israel says it does everything it can to prevent civilian casualties, including issuing warnings for people to evacuate buildings about to be struck. As Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, most of them intercepted by anti-missile defenses, Israel’s military has pounded hundreds of sites in Gaza, where some 2 million people live squeezed into a tight urban fabric.
Videos on social media from Gaza have shown the grief of survivors from families wiped out in an instant.
“They were four! Where are they? Four!” wailed one father outside a hospital after learning all four of his children had been killed. Another showed a young boy screaming “Baba,” as he ran to the front of the funeral procession where men were carrying his father’s body to burial.
The Ishkontana family was buried under the rubble of their home early Sunday, after massive bombing raids of downtown Gaza City that Israel said were targeting a Hamas tunnel network. The strikes came without warning.
Riad Ishkontana recounted to The Associated Press how he was buried for five hours under the wreckage, pinned under a chunk of concrete, unable to reach his wife and five children.
“I was listening to their voices beneath the rubble. I heard Dana and Zain calling, ‘Dad! Dad!’ before their voices faded and then I realized they had died,” he said, referring to two of his children.
After he was rescued and taken to the hospital, he said, family and staff hid the truth from him as long as they could. “I learned about their deaths one after another,” he said. Finally, Suzy was brought in alive, the second-oldest of his three daughters and two sons, and the only survivor.
Though she had only limited physical bruising from her seven hours under the rubble, the young girl was in “severe trauma and shock,” said pediatrician Dr. Zuhair Al-Jaro. The hospital was unable to get her the psychological treatment she needs because of the ongoing fighting, he said.
“She has entered into a deep depression,” he said. Only today, he said Tuesday, did she eat something after she was allowed briefly outside the hospital and saw her cousins.
As her father spoke to the AP, Suzy sat on the bed next to him, silent and studying the faces of the people in the room but rarely making eye contact. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she turned away. When her father started to answer for her, saying she wanted to become a doctor, the girl began sobbing loudly.
Read:Israel, Hamas trade fire in Gaza; Palestinians go on strike
Ishkontana, 42, who recently stopped working as a waiter because of coronavirus lockdowns, said Suzy is smart and tech-savvy and loves smartphones and tablets. “She explores them, she has more experience dealing with them than I do,” he said. She also loves studying and would gather all her siblings into a play “class,” taking the role of their teacher, he said.
The Ishkontanas were just one family destroyed that day.
The strikes Sunday targeted Hamas tunnels running under Gaza City, the Israeli military said. The warplanes pounded al-Wahda Street, one of the city’s busiest commercial avenues, lined with apartment buildings with stores, bakeries, cafes and electronics shops on the ground floors.
Three buildings collapsed, and multiple people from at least three families were killed. In all 42 people died, including 10 children and 16 women.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, called the situation that led to the deaths “abnormal.” He said in one location the airstrikes caused a tunnel to collapse, bringing houses down with it, “and that caused a large amount of civilian casualties, which were not the aim.”
He said the military was analyzing what happened and “attempting to recalibrate” its ordnance to prevent a reoccurrence.
He said the bombing campaign targeting tunnel networks would be expanded to more areas of Gaza and that the military tries when possible to hit tunnels under roads rather than under houses.
Israel and Hamas have fought similar conflicts in 2009, 2012 and 2014, each time wreaking heavy destruction
The Norwegian Refugee Council said that 11 of the children killed so far in this war had been going through its psycho-social programs helping children deal with trauma — a sign of how children repeatedly are victimized by the violence. Among them was 8-year-old Dana, Suzy’s sister.
“It’s the fourth time for many of them to experience” bombardment around their homes, said Hozayfa Yazji, the refugee council area field manager.
Parents in Gaza desperately try to calm their terrified children, as bombs rain down, telling the youngest ones it’s just fireworks or trying to put up a cheerful front.
Read:India calls for end to violence in Israel, Gaza
The violence “will of course affect the psychology of these kids,” he said. “We are expecting that ... the situation will be much worse and more children will need more support.”
The refugee council works with 118 schools in Gaza, reaching more than 75,000 students through its Better Learning Program. The program trains teachers to deal with traumatized children and organizes fun exercises to relieve stress. It also does home-checks on children to provide help.
The council’s secretary-general, Jan Egeland, called for an immediate cease-fire, saying, “Spare these children and their families. Stop bombing them now.”
But he said, longer term, an end to the blockade on Gaza and occupation of Palestinian territory is necessary “if we are to avoid more trauma and death among children.”
US reaches out to Arab leaders on Israel, Gaza fighting
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his envoy reached out to Palestinian and regional Arab leaders on Tuesday as attacks between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers raged on, maintaining what the Biden administration is calling its quiet diplomacy while still declining to press for an immediate cease-fire.
Blinken, speaking during an unrelated trip focusing on Russia and Nordic countries, also defended the U.S. decision to block what would have been a unanimous U.N. Security Council statement on the fighting and its civilian toll, and the overall U.S. approach to the worst Israeli-Palestinian fighting since 2014. President Joe Biden, speaking to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, expressed general support for a cease fire but stopped short of joining dozens of Democratic lawmakers in demanding one.
“Our goal remains to bring the current cycle of violence to an end” and then return to a process in which a lasting peace can be forged, the U.S. diplomat said.
Blinken said he had spoken to the foreign ministers of Morocco and Bahrain, two Arab countries that recently have moved to normalize relations with Israel, while US envoy Hady Amr in Israel spoke with Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The ongoing U.S. outreach — reflecting an administration that has emphasized working with allies, and has refrained from publicly criticizing ally Israel — came as new Hamas rockets and Israeli airstrikes continued for a ninth day. At least 213 Palestinians and 12 people in Israel have died. Efforts by Egypt and others to mediate a truce have stalled.
Biden’s carefully worded statement expressing general support for a cease-fire, in a White House readout Monday of his second known call to Netanyahu in three days as the attacks pounded on, came with the administration under pressure to respond more forcefully despite its reluctance to challenge Israel’s actions in its part of the fighting. The administration also has expressed its determination to wrench the main U.S. foreign policy focus away from Middle East hotspots and Afghanistan.
Biden’s comments on a cease-fire were open-ended and similar to previous administration statements of support in principle for a cease-fire.
Biden also “encouraged Israel to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians,” the White House said in its readout.
An administration official said the decision to express support and not explicitly demand a cease-fire was intentional. While Biden and top aides are concerned about the mounting bloodshed and loss of innocent life, the decision not to demand an immediate halt to hostilities reflects White House determination to support Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.
Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers were meeting Tuesday to discuss how to use the 27-nation bloc’s political clout to help diplomatic efforts to end the fighting between the Israeli armed forces and Palestinian militants. The EU has been united in its calls for a cease-fire and the need for a political solution to end the latest conflict, but the nations are divided over how best to help.
Netanyahu told Israeli security officials late Monday that Israel would “continue to strike terror targets” in Gaza “as long as necessary in order to return calm and security to all Israeli citizens.”
Separately, the United States, Israel’s top ally, blocked for a third time Monday what would have been a unanimous statement by the 15-nation U.N. Security Council expressing “grave concern” over the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the loss of civilian lives. The final U.S. rejection killed the Security Council statement, at least for now.
Blinken said the U.S. was “not standing in the way of diplomacy” and that the U.N. statement would not have advanced the goal of ending the violence.
“If we thought and if we think that there is something, including at the United Nations that could advance the situation, we would be for it,” Blinken said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States was focusing instead on “quiet, intensive diplomacy.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday joined dozens of Democratic lawmakers — and one Republican and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders — in calling for the cease-fire by both sides. A prominent Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, the House intelligence committee chairman, pressed the U.S. over the weekend to get more involved.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took the Senate floor on Monday to assail lawmakers for including Israel in their demands for a cease-fire.
“To say that both sides, both sides need to de-escalate downplays the responsibility terrorists have for initiating the conflict in the first place and suggests Israelis are not entitled to defend themselves against ongoing rocket barrages,” McConnell said.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., led 19 Republican senators releasing a resolution supporting Israel’s side of the fighting. They plan to try to introduce the legislation next week.