Israel-Gaza updates: Poliovirus detected in wastewater across Gaza, WHO says

Poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples in the Gaza Strip according to testing conducted in coordination with the United Nations, the Gaza Ministry of Health announced Thursday.

Samples were taken from sewage water that "collects and flows between the tents of the displaced and in the places where residents are located as a result of the destruction of the infrastructure" in war-torn Gaza, according to the ministry.

"The presence of the virus that causes polio ... represents a new health disaster," the ministry said in a statement. "There is severe overcrowding, a scarcity of available water and its contamination with sewage water, the accumulation of tons of garbage and the occupation's prevention of the entry of hygiene materials, which creates a suitable environment for the spread of various epidemics."

The ministry called for "an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression, the provision of usable water, the repair of sewage lines and an end to the overcrowding at displacement camps."

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus, which attacks the nervous system and can lead to irreversible paralysis, according to the World Health Organization.

Polio mainly affects children under 5, though the virus can strike at any age. It’s incurable but completely vaccine-preventable. The virus is highly contagious and can live for weeks in an infected person's feces, which can contaminate food and water in unsanitary conditions and spread to other people. Polio remains endemic in two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the WHO.

-ABC News' Morgan Winsor

At least two people were killed and five others were injured after Israel carried out a strike on Al-Falah School in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, the ninth school the IDF has targeted in the last 10 days, according to the Gaza Civil Defense.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has scrapped Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's plans to establish a field hospital for Gazans along the border with Gaza.

Netanyahu "announced in writing that he does not approve the establishment of a hospital for Gazans on Israeli territory -- therefore it will not be built," his office said in a statement Thursday.

Gallant had announced Wednesday that he had ordered the establishment of a temporary field hospital in southern Israel along the border with Gaza to treat sick Palestinian children who are unable to leave the war-torn enclave for medical care abroad, amid the extended closure of Gaza's Rafah crossing into Egypt. Gallant said he had told his American counterpart, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, about the plan for the field hospital during a call earlier this week, according to a readout.

The World Health Organization’s representative for Gaza and the West Bank, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters Wednesday that some 10,000 patients in Gaza still require urgent evacuation for medical treatment.

-ABC News' Jordana Miller

Human rights group Amnesty International has accused Israel of mass incommunicado detention and torture of Palestinian detainees from Gaza, citing the documented cases of 27 Palestinians who were detained for periods of up to four-and-a-half months without access to their lawyers or contact with their families.

Those detained included doctors taken into custody at hospitals for refusing to abandon their patients, mothers separated from their infants while trying to cross the so-called "safe corridor" from northern Gaza to the south, human rights defenders, U.N. workers, journalists and other civilians.

The Israeli Prison Service told the Israeli NGO HaMoked that -- as of July 1 -- 1,402 Palestinians were detained under a law that grants its military sweeping powers to detain anyone from Gaza they suspect of engaging in hostilities against Israel or of posing a threat to state security for indefinitely-renewable periods without having to produce evidence. This count excludes those held for an initial 45-day period without a formal order.

"The Israeli authorities must immediately repeal this law and release those arbitrarily detained under it. Torture and other ill-treatment including sexual violence are war crimes - these allegations must be independently investigated by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor’s office," Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard.

"The Israeli authorities must also grant immediate and unrestricted access to all places of detention to independent monitors - access that has been denied since 7 October," Callamard said.

Israel said it holds detainees lawfully and denies allegations of torture and says prisoners are granted their basic rights, according to the Associated Press.