VOA News for Friday, May 14th, 2021

VOA News for Friday, May 14th, 2021
Thanks to gandalf.ddo.jp/ for transcribing
This is VOA News. Reporting by remote, I'm Joe Ramsey.
Israel's military said Friday it has begun a ground operation against Hamas in Gaza, escalating its offensive against the militant group. The Israeli army says planes and troops are carrying out an attack in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier Thursday, Israel pounded Gaza and deployed extra troops and tanks to the border as Hamas continued firing back rockets, with the death toll in the Palestinian enclave on the fourth day of the conflict climbing to over 100.
The Israeli Defense Ministry has given the army the green light to mobilize thousands of reservists if necessary.
Hamas had warned any ground incursion would lead to an increase in the number of dead and prisoners from the enemy side.
The U.S.'s top diplomat says he is engaging with Middle East partners with urgency to help deescalate the rising hostilities between Israel and Hamas. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday he supported a U.N. Security Council meeting next week on the crisis after diplomats said Washington blocked a Friday session. Blinken says he is hopeful some time will give diplomacy a chance to have some effect.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday urged citizens to reconsider travel to Israel due to the recent surge in violence between the Jewish state and Palestinians. The travel advisory level which had been lowered in recent weeks due to improvement in the country's COVID-19 situation was stepped up to level three out of a maximum of four.
Washington is also advising that Americans do not travel to the West Bank and Gaza.
Find more on these stories and the rest of the day's news at voanews.com or follow us on the VOA mobile app. This is VOA News.
British health officials said Friday the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in Britain has prevented daily 12,000 deaths and more than 30,000 hospitalizations in older people.
Britain has given two-thirds of its adult population at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine, helping Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his efforts to reopen the economy by the summer.
The analysis by government agency Public Health England says the estimate accounts only for the direct effects of vaccines and evidence that vaccines help reduce transmission means the numbers of deaths and hospitalizations is likely higher.
There have been 127,000 deaths in Britain from COVID-19 - the sixth highest death toll globally, according to a Reuters analysis.
More teenagers in the United States [begin res...] began receiving COVID-19 vaccines on Thursday. U.S. regulators authorized Pfizer's vaccines for use in children as young as 12 earlier in the week, the first coronavirus shot to be approved in the United States for ages 12 to 15.
Thursday was the first day the shots went into the arms of the age group in some U.S. states. Vaccinating younger ages is considered an important step [to] for getting children back into school safely.
Pfizer repeatedly offered to sell its COVID-19 vaccine to Brazil's Health Ministry between August and November last year but got no answer from the government, Pfizer's chief executive for Latin America told lawmakers on Thursday.
A Senate commission is investigating whether President Jair Bolsonaro's government mishandled the pandemic by failing to secure vaccines in time to curb a surge that has killed more than 430,000 Brazilians - the worst COVID-19 death toll outside the United States.
The letter went unanswered for two months, the parliamentary commission has established.
The Brazilian government eventually negotiated with Pfizer for 100 million doses in a contract signed in March, with the first one million doses arriving in late April.
And the U.S.'s top Homeland Security official said on Thursday immigration officials still face challenges at the U.S.-Mexico border but extraordinary efforts have been made to move unaccompanied migrant children out of crowded border stations.
Federal authorities have reduced the number of unaccompanied children from a peak of 5,700 in late March to under 500 this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told U.S. lawmakers.
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has struggled with a sharp rise in migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. About 173,000 migrants were apprehended at the [south...] southwestern border in April.
Reporting remotely, I'm Joe Ramsey, VOA News.

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