The Palestinian Ministry of Health says Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza have killed 42 Palestinians while wounding more than 100 others in the past 24 hours. In central Gaza City, nine people were killed as Israel bombed a residential building near a city park. Two children were among the dead. Elsewhere, at least seven Palestinians were killed Tuesday when Israel bombed Namaa College northwest of Gaza City, where hundreds of displaced Palestinians had taken shelter.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says its mass vaccination campaign against polio has so far reached about a quarter of Gaza’s children, after Israel agreed to eight-hour pauses in its attacks. This is Ghada Judeh, a displaced Gaza resident and volunteer on the vaccination campaign.

Ghada Judeh: “We are displaced from Deir al-Balah. I gave my children the polio vaccine to protect them from disease, but I can’t protect them from strikes and from death, unless you help us, just as you helped us and delivered the medications to us to protect our children. So, please, stand with us to stop the war so that our children can live peacefully and to continue their studies.”

Israeli forces have expanded their military offensive in the occupied West Bank, where troops have raided the Jalazone refugee camp, north of Ramallah. Separately, Israeli forces surrounded Hebron for a fourth day, with more raids reported around Qalqilya, Nablus and Bethlehem. The Palestinian Authority reports Israeli assaults on the West Bank over the past week have killed at least 33 Palestinians, including seven children.

Pressure is mounting for Israel to release Dr. Khaled Alser, a highly respected Palestinian surgeon who was abducted by Israeli forces during a raid on Gaza’s Nasser Hospital in March. Colleagues say Dr. Alser has been tortured in Israeli custody at Ofer Prison and at the notorious Sde Teiman prison camp in the Negev Desert, where several Israeli soldiers have been accused of raping Palestinian prisoners. Dr. Alser is the lead author of a journal article just published in the British medical journal The Lancet. Democracy Now! spoke to one of the paper’s co-authors, Dr. Simon Fitzgerald, a Brooklyn trauma surgeon.

Dr. Simon Fitzgerald: “Our lead author, Dr. Khaled Alser, remains forcibly disappeared. And it was only about probably the same week that the piece was published that we got word through Israeli Physicians for Human Rights — we were able to get a lawyer into Ofer Prison, where Dr. Khaled Alser is — at least at the time he was interviewed in July was being held — and were able to get testimony that he indeed was abducted by Israeli forces, abused, maltreated, basically tortured.”

Human Rights Watch reports doctors, nurses and paramedics held by Israel have faced widespread torture, including beatings, rape and sexual abuse, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing, blindfolding and denial of medical care. Click here to see our segment on that report.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of major cities across Israel for the fourth day in a row to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire and hostage release deal. This morning, families of hostages held by Hamas protested outside of Likud party headquarters in Tel Aviv, following Tuesday evening protests outside the Israeli army headquarters. We’ll have the latest on Israel and Palestine after headlines.

In Ukraine, a pair of Russian missiles struck a military academy and hospital in the city of Poltava on Tuesday, killing at least 51 people and injuring more than 270 others. It was among the deadliest attacks on Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in early 2022. In a separate assault, a 38-year-old mother was killed with her 8-year-old son in a Russian strike on a hotel in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. Survivors say the assault came almost without warning.

Anna Savchenko: “There was an explosion two minutes after the air alert was declared. We had no time to hide. There was a very powerful explosion. We heard people screaming. We understood that there was a collapse at the hotel.”

Overnight, Poland’s military said it scrambled Polish and allied fighter planes to its border with Ukraine, after Russia launched drone and missile attacks on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Those attacks killed seven people, including three children.

Meanwhile, several of Ukraine’s top government ministers have offered to resign as part of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s biggest shakeup of his administration to date. Among the high-profile resignations are Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and weapons chief Oleksandr Kamyshin.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at least 129 people were killed on Monday as they tried to escape the notorious Makala Prison in Kinshasa. Dozens more were injured. The DRC’s security minister says two dozen prisoners were shot dead by guards; the rest reportedly died in a crowd crush set off by the chaos. The prison was built to house 1,500 people. At its peak this summer, it held 15,000. Amnesty International has described conditions in Makala Prison as “appalling,” while prisoners report widespread hunger, overcrowding and abuse.

Jeff: “I have been detained here for a year without trial. The conditions are very difficult. The prisoners die every day. The people suffer here like you have no idea. The prisoners eat very badly, and the rations of the prisoners are often diverted by the prison officials.”

In Nigeria, at least 81 people were killed Sunday when fighters from the Boko Haram militant group opened fire on villagers in the northeastern state of Yobe. Many survivors said the massacre was retaliation for the community’s refusal to pay extortion money to Boko Haram fighters. Fifteen years of insurgency by Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands of Nigerians while displacing more than 2 million people.

At least 12 migrants, including a pregnant woman and several children, have died after their boat capsized as they attempted to cross the English Channel. Some 65 survivors were rescued Tuesday. Most of the migrants on the boat are from Eritrea. The English Channel has become a common route for thousands of migrants attempting to reach the U.K. for safety.

Here in the United States, a late summer heat wave is bringing some of the year’s hottest temperatures to southwestern states. Excessive-heat warnings are in effect in Southern California, where the National Weather Service is forecasting several days of triple-digit heat, with highs of up to 120° Fahrenheit in some areas. Meanwhile, Phoenix, Arizona, on Tuesday shattered its previous record after logging its 100th consecutive day of temperatures reaching 100 degrees or more — with no end to scorching temperatures in sight.

Donald Trump entered a “not guilty” plea Tuesday after special counsel Jack Smith filed a revised criminal indictment against Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump also waived the right to be present at his arraignment.

Elsewhere, a federal judge in Manhattan has denied a request by Donald Trump to transfer his New York state criminal case to the federal courts, after rejecting Trump’s claims that Judge Juan Merchan was biased against him. In May, Trump was found guilty of all 34 felony charges of attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election by falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments. He’s still scheduled to be sentenced on September 18.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s campaign has been ordered to stop using the music of the late singer Isaac Hayes at Trump rallies. A judge in Georgia agreed with a lawsuit brought by Hayes’s family, who says the legendary singer would not have approved of Trump’s use of his song, “Hold On, I’m Coming.”

Montana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy has been caught on tape making racist comments about Native Americans. Sheehy’s remarks were first reported by the Char-Koosta News, the official news publication of the Flathead Indian Reservation, which obtained audio clips of Sheehy at campaign events last November.

Tim Sheehy: “Great way to bond with all the Indians being out there while they’re drunk at 8 a.m.”

In more racist comments, Sheehy joked that members of the Crow Tribe would “let you know whether they like you or not, there’s Coors Light cans flying by your head.” Montana is home to eight federally recognized tribes with more than 70,000 Native Americans of voting age. Political action committees have spent more than $44 million on Montana’s Senate race, where Republicans hope to unseat Democrat Jon Tester in November.

Here in New York, federal prosecutors have indicted a former aide to Governors Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo on charges of acting as an agent for the Chinese government. The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges Linda Sun, a former deputy chief of staff to Governor Hochul, worked as an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government while her husband helped launder millions of dollars in kickbacks for personal gain. The 10-count criminal indictment also alleges Sun thwarted efforts by Taiwanese officials to speak to New York’s governor and eliminated references to Taiwan and China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims from state communications. Hochul’s office says the governor fired Sun in March of 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct.

In Florida, the federal trial against three members of a pan-Africanist group accused of conspiring with the Russian government to “sow discord” and “interfere” in U.S. elections began in Tampa this week. Omali Yeshitela, longtime chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, also known as the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, along with Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, were indicted in 2023 for allegedly working on behalf of Russia in a multiyear foreign “malign influence campaign” in the United States. Another U.S. citizen and three Russian nationals are also part of the case. As the trail got underway Tuesday, Democracy Now! spoke to Mwezi Odom, chair of Hands Off Uhuru!

Mwezi Odom: “The government, as we say, has nothing, and everything that they are accusing the Uruhu Three of is pure political speech. And this is, again, just an attempt to rewrite history. That includes decades of organizing and struggling for democratic rights in this country, such as the right to vote, the right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, you know, everything.”