CBS News
Palestinians mark 76th “Nakba,” as the raging Israel-Hamas war leaves them to suffer a brand new catastrophe
Ramallah, West Bank — For Palestinians, Wednesday marks the “Nakba.” The word means catastrophe, and the date marks the mass displacement in 1948 of more than 700,000 Palestinians upon the formation of the modern state of Israel.
It has been 76 years since that happened, but this year, Palestinians are also commemorating what some are calling a second Nakba — the current war in the Gaza Strip, which has been perhaps the most horrific and the bloodiest chapter in the history of the Palestinian people.
Since Gaza’s Hamas rulers sparked the war with their Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the territory, according to its health ministry. The United Nations estimates that at least 1.7 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population — have been displaced from their homes since the war started.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been adamant since Oct. 7 that the only way to respond to Hamas’ slaughter of some 1,200 people is to destroy the group, and he’s vowed to carry out a ground offensive in Rafah, the last Gazan city so far spared an all-out assault.
Israel says there are four Hamas battalions still there, but there are also hundreds of thousands of civilians who sought refuge in the southern city over seven months of war, and the U.S. and other Israeli allies have warned against a full-scale ground invasion.
Much of the rest of Gaza has already been left in ruins by Israel’s overwhelming firepower — much of it supplied by the U.S., and with much more said to be on the way soon.
Ramadan Abed/REUTERS
For the Palestinian people, it’s already been a crisis on a scale far greater than the violence and displacement of 76 years ago, and with the prospect of a Rafah incursion looming, thousands have fled in fear for their lives all over again.
On Tuesday, Israelis marked their Independence Day. Normally a time of celebration, this year’s commemorations were largely somber, as Israelis continue to call on their leaders to reach a deal to free the roughly 100 hostages still believed to be alive and held by Hamas or other groups in Gaza.
CBS News’ Tucker Reals contributed to this report.
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CBS News
McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.