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Israeli strikes reportedly kill at least 30 in north Gaza as fleeing Palestinians describe dire conditions
Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes killed at least 30 people in Gaza, including on a home where displaced families were sheltering, health officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said Tuesday. Ten people were killed early Tuesday, including four children and two women, and a strike late Monday on the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya killed at least 20 people, including eight women and six children, the health officials said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a weapons storage facility in northern Gaza from which a militant had operated, and that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Israel has been waging a massive offensive in northern Gaza — which was already the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory — for nearly a month.
Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu/Getty
Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon, intensified Israeli strikes against the Hezbollah militant group are expanding beyond Lebanon’s border areas as Israel continues fighting its war against Hamas in Gaza, with no end in sight.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, when the Iran-backed Lebanese group started firing rockets at Israel in support of Hamas, at least 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,500 wounded in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
More than a year of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed over 43,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials. The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties, but says more than half of those killed have been women and children.
The war was sparked by Hamas and allied militants storming into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
Fleeing Palestinians describe dire conditions in north Gaza
Dozens of Palestinians trickled southward from war-ravaged northern Gaza Tuesday, recounting how they had hardly eaten in days with aid long cut off to the area under heavy Israeli bombardment.
In the far northern town of Beit Lahiya, mostly women and children dragged rucksacks and satchels with belongings as they walked down a street where every building had been completely flattened or partially destroyed.
OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP/Getty
“We came barefoot. We have no sandals, no clothes, nothing. We have no money. There is no food or drink,” said Huda Abu Laila, who along with the others was headed toward Gaza City.
“We are hungry. Hunger has killed us. We were under siege for one month without water or food,” the gaunt elderly women continued, before erupting in tears.
Israel launched its new offensive in northern Gaza in early October, focusing on Jabaliya, a densely populated, decades-old urban refugee camp where it says Hamas had regrouped.
The U.N. estimated last week that some 100,000 people remained in the affected area. It has said no aid has reached the far north of the Palestinian territory for weeks. On Monday, the Gaza health ministry said there were no ambulances or emergency crews currently operating north of Gaza City.
Israel has repeatedly issued evacuation warnings for the entirety of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, where several hundred thousand more Palestinians remain.
If history is any guide, one stock market gauge suggests that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race.
In all but two elections since 1944, the party in the White House has retained power when the U.S. stock market advances before Election Day, or the period between the end of July and Halloween, according to an election predictor devised by Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, based out of Allentown, Pennsylvania.
In 2020, the S&P 500 fell 0.04% from July 31 to October 31, with then-President Donald Trump losing the election to President Joe Biden. While the outcome in the 2024 election is not yet known, the S&P 500 rose 3.3% during that three-month span this year.
To be sure, many other factors can influence a presidential race, and Wall Street is no stranger to making wrong predictions, ranging from the direction of the stock market to election outcomes. And betting markets that allow average investors to place wagers on the election outcome have in recent weeks favored Trump.
“You can say there is sort of an overlap — the market usually goes up on an annual basis and voters tend to give the incumbent the benefit of the doubt, so it makes sense if the market goes up most of the time and the incumbent gets re-elected most of the time,” Stovall told CBS MoneyWatch.
Even more reliable are periods when the stock market falls during the period from July 31 to October 31, in which case the incumbent has been replaced 89% of the time. That predictor failed only once, in 1956, according to Stovall, pointing to the year when incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson, despite the S&P 500 tumbling 7.7% in the period ahead of the election.
Still, Stovall notes a mathematician might scoff at basing a model on such a limited sample, in this case the 21 presidential elections held in the U.S. since World War II.
“Is this really statistically significant? I think the answer is no, but it makes for interesting copy,” the strategist said. “You can have data tell whatever story you want.”
Limited or not, Stovall is sticking with his presidential predictor.
“I believe we will see a Harris victory ultimately, because I’m a very big believer in history and rules-based investing,” Stovall told CBS News.
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