screening

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on Gaza just before the kickoff of the Egypt-Argentina World Cup match killed a top Palestinian aid official who helped organize public screenings of the game across the enclave, according to local health officials.

The blast turned what was supposed to be a moment of celebration — the live screening of a potential Argentina upset by an Arab team — into a reminder of how the near-daily Israeli strikes across Gaza are continuing to kill civilians despite a truce reached in October.

The bomb hit a car in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City at dusk Tuesday, killing passersby Mohamed al-Wahidi, an official at the Egyptian Committee in Gaza, 10-year-old boy Hamza al-Deri and his 8-year-old brother, Fari. Ahmed Daghmush, 33, the driver of the car, was also killed. That’s according to Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, the director of Shifa Hospital, which received the four bodies.

The Israeli military said al-Wahidi, who helped organize the soccer screenings, was not a target of the strike. It said the strike was aiming for a Hamas militant, and it was checking if Daghmush was the target.

Daghmush is a taxi driver not known to be affiliated with any militant group, Abu Selmiya said.

An Israeli strike hit the same street half an hour earlier, causing no casualties.

The committee for which al-Wahidi worked is the relief arm of the Egyptian government, which provides food, shelters and other assistance to Palestinians in Gaza. The committee organized the initiative to put up screens across Gaza to watch soccer matches, it said.

Many in the Palestinian diaspora live across the border in Egypt, which was a key mediator of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Team Egypt’s Gaza fanbase has only grown since the start of the tournament, as coach Hossam Hassan has spotlighted the plight of the Palestinian people in press briefings and on the pitch. He dedicated his team’s victory over Australia on Friday to both Egyptians and Palestinians and waved a Palestinian flag on the pitch.

In a Monday briefing before the match against Argentina, Hassan urged the world to do more for the Palestinian people.

“I urge you, I urge all media officers, all athletes worldwide, regardless of their identities, maybe we can convey a collective message that is as follows, let the Palestinian people be, let them exist, let them live a life of their own,” he said.

Israel’s military says its strikes target militants and it regrets harm to civilians. At least 1,084 people, including 258 children, have been killed since the truce took effect in October. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time.

The Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war stands at 73,110, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government and is staffed by medical professionals who maintain detailed records viewed as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says women and children make up around half of all fatalities.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

Shurafa, Magdy and Frankel write for the Associated Press. Magdy reported from Cairo and Frankel from Jerusalem.

The first film by Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg to be shot partly in the U.S. is, perhaps not surprisingly, a freaky satire of Hollywood. Its take on fame has only grown more accurate in the years since its premiere in 2014. Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska and Robert Pattinson star in a demented tale of family, celebrity, ambition, ego and limousines. Funny and perverse, the film captures the uncanny cocktail of mean-spirited malignancy, self-obsessed delusion and just plain obliviousness that runs rampant around town. Presented by the screening series Mezzanine and the local literary magazine the Big One, the evening will be introduced by the film’s screenwriter, Bruce Wagner, a longtime chronicler of Los Angeles.

“Maps to the Stars” is playing June 14 at Brain Dead Studios. Tickets here.

May 23 (UPI) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday added two more airports that travelers to the United States can be routed through for Ebola screening when entering the country.

The enhanced travel screening announced earlier this week by the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security is meant to screen people for the virus on entry to the country if they have been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan or Uganda.

The outbreak, which started in the DRC and has spread to neighboring South Sudan and Uganda, is estimated to have 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, the World Health Organization on Friday said, adding that the “real scale of the outbreak is likely far larger.”

The CDC first issued restrictions on Thursday for Americans returning to the United States to be screened at Washington Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., before continuing on to their final destinations.

The two additional airports will be Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which started to accept travelers at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Friday, and George W. Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, which will start to accept travelers on Tuesday, May 26, at 11:59 p.m. EDT, the CDC said on Saturday.

“These travelers will have their air travel re-routed to arrive at select airports,” CDC officials said in the update.

The enhanced health screening includes being escorted to a designated screening area; completing a questionnaire about their travel history and symptoms; having their temperatures checked using non-contact thermometers; and observation by CDC staff for signs of illness.

“Travelers with fever or other symptoms that could be Ebola will receive additional evaluation by a CDC public health officer,” the agency said.

“If the assessment shows that a traveler may be sick with Ebola, the traveler will be transferred to a hospital for further medical evaluation,” it said.

The WHO on Friday raised the national risk assessment during the outbreak in the DRC to “very high,” but officials said that global risk for infection with the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is no approved vaccine.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus during a meeting on Friday thanked the efforts of neighboring nations in Africa who have assisted during the outbreak, as well as the various regional and global health agencies that also have done so.

Although the United States last year pulled out of the WHO, the U.S. State Department said on Saturday that it has activated a dedicated Ebola Response Task Force that is led by “senior experts with direct experience managing prior Ebola outbreaks” in 2014 and 2018.

The department also has deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team and provided $32 million in assistance to U.S. partners in the region, it said in a press release.

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