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The death toll from Israel's 14-month assault on the Gaza Strip hit at least 44,758 on Monday, with 50 people killed in the past 24 hours alone, as Israeli forces bombed refugee camps, a flour distribution line, and a hospital, according to reporters and officials in the Palestinian enclave.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said a bombing at the Indonesian Hospital north of Gaza City wounded six patients—who are now among more than 106,000 Palestinians injured since Israel began its retaliation for last year's Hamas-led attack.
"We demand international protection for hospitals, patients, and medical staff," the ministry said in a statement reported by The Associated Press—which noted that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed Sunday evening it was unaware of any attack on the hospital "in the last three to four hours."
A nurse shared footage from the hospital with Drop Site News, which circulated the material on social media:
According to Al Jazeera, "Overnight, an Israeli attack in the southern city of Rafah also killed 10 people while they had lined up to buy flour."
Israel, which faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, has been accused of starving Gaza's 2.3 million residents by refusing to allow enough humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
Reporting from central Deir al-Balah, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said that at least three people were killed in a Monday morning attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in the north that Israeli bombing and the ongoing blockade have "turned into a graveyard."
The victims "were trying to leave their home in search of food in the vicinity of their neighborhood when they were targeted by a drone," the journalist said. "They were killed right away. Their bodies are still in the street and nobody has the ability to get to the bombed site and remove the bodies from the street."
The IDF announced that three soldiers were killed and 12 others were wounded Monday in fighting in Jabalia.
Mahmoud, the journalist, also said Monday that bodies were piling up outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli bombing at the Bureij refugee camp.
"The agony keeps on unfolding here at al-Aqsa Hospital, where survivors and relatives showed up early this morning to collect the bodies from the morgue of the hospital," he said. "At some point, the morgue of the hospital was packed with the bodies and there was not enough room for more bodies."
Citing the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Middle East Eye reported that "two children lost their lives, and others were injured on Monday, during Israeli shelling of al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip."
The updates followed a Hamas delegation led by Khalil al-Hayya leaving Cairo Sunday evening after meeting with Egypt's general intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Hassan Rashad, to discuss a potential cease-fire in Gaza.
Israeli media reported Sunday that unnamed political sources claimed Hamas and Israel are close to reaching a "small" deal that would involve a two-month cease-fire; the release of prisoners who are elderly, women, wounded, and sick; and the IDF's withdrawal from parts of Gaza.
Neither Hamas nor mediators Egypt and Qatar have commented on the reporting—which came over a week into an Israeli cease-fire with the Lebanese group Hezbollah that Israel has repeatedly violated since it took effect late last month.
In neighboring Syria, the government of President Bashar al-Assad collapsed over the weekend as he fled and rebels took control of the capital. Israel seized more of the country's Golan Heights, which it has illegally occupied for decades, and the United States—which arms the IDF—launched airstrikes on over 75 Islamic State targets in Syria.
The Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced a permanent ban on a pair of carcinogenic chemicals widely used in U.S. industries, including dry cleaning services and automative work.
According to the Washington Post:
The announcement includes the complete ban of trichloroethylene—also known as TCE—a substance found in common consumer and manufacturing products including degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. In addition, the agency banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of Perc—also known as tetrachloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.
Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, applauded the move but suggested to the Post that it should have come sooner.
"Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives," Kalmuss-Katz.
The EPA's decision, reports the New York Times, was "long sought by environmental and health advocates, even as they braced for what could be a wave of deregulation by the incoming Trump administration."
The Times reports:
TCE is known to cause liver cancer, kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and to damage the nervous and immune systems. It has been found in drinking water nationwide and was the subject of a 1995 book that became a movie, “A Civil Action,” starring John Travolta. The E.P.A. is banning all uses of the chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which was overhauled in 2016 to give the agency greater authority to regulate harmful chemicals.
Though deemed "less harmful" than TCE, the Times notes how Perc has been shown to "cause liver, kidney, brain and testicular cancer," and can also damage the functioning of kidneys, the liver, and people's immune systems.
Environmentalists celebrated last year when Biden's EPA proposed the ban on TCE, as Common Dreams reported.
Responding to the news at the time, Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said the EPA, by putting the ban on the table, was "once again putting the health of workers and consumers first."
While President-elect Donald Trump ran on a having an environmental agenda that would foster the "cleanest air" and the "cleanest water," the late approval of EPA's ban on TCE and Perc in Biden's term means the rule will be subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), meaning the Republican-control Senate could reverse the measure.
In his remarks to the Times, Kalmuss-Katz of Earthjustice said that if Trump and Senate Republicans try to roll back the ban, they will be certain to "encounter serious opposition from communities across the country that have been devastated by TCE, in both blue and red states."
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