Al-Jazeera / August 31, 2024
WHO says that the official larger vaccine rollout, which aims to reach 640,000 children, will begin on Sunday.
Several children in Gaza have been given polio vaccines a day before a large-scale campaign to inoculate children against the virus and a planned pause in fighting in the besieged territory, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
Reporters from The Associated Press news agency saw roughly 10 infants receiving doses of vaccine in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Saturday afternoon.
“I was terrified and waiting for the vaccination to arrive and for everyone to receive it,” said Amal Shaheen, whose daughter received a dose.
The WHO has confirmed that the official larger rollout of the vaccine will begin on Sunday.
The three-day vaccination campaign aims to reach some 640,000 Palestinian children and comes after the first polio case in 25 years in Gaza was discovered this month.
Reporting from Deir-al Balah, Al-Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the rollout was set to begin in central Gaza on Sunday.
“The other days will be in Khan Younis and the last rollout will be in the northern part of the Strip,” Mahmoud added.
Israel has agreed to pause its military offensive in Gaza to allow health workers to administer the vaccines, UN officials have said.
Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the Palestinian territory, said on Thursday that the three pauses will take place from 6am to 3pm (03:00 to 12:00 GMT) and last for three days each in different areas of Gaza, beginning on Sunday. The pauses are unrelated to the continuing ceasefire negotiations.
“These are very momentary pauses from morning till mid-afternoon in each area. Considering the travel logistics for people in Gaza, this is not going to be easy for them to come and go safely,” Mukesh Kapila, a former WHO official, told Al-Jazeera.
He added that Palestinian parents will be concerned for the safety of their children as Israeli attacks on health facilities have continued.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has deepened during Israel’s assault on the territory that began after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, which killed at least 1,139 people. Israel’s subsequent offensive has killed at least 40,691 people in Gaza.
On Saturday, the Palestinian Civil Defence agency in Gaza said at least three people were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli attack in the vicinity of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital (Baptist Hospital).
Al-Jazeera’s Mahmoud said that in a previous attack at the hospital, hundreds of people were killed.
“This is not the first time we’ve seen health facilities being directly and deliberately targeted by the Israeli military. This particular hospital was attacked in the initial weeks of this war, and hundreds of people were killed as they were in the courtyard of the hospital,” he said.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza that would also see the remaining captives released.
But the talks have repeatedly bogged down as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised “total victory” over Hamas and the Palestinian group has demanded a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Source: Al-Jazeera and news agencies
___________
First children in Gaza given polio vaccine
AP / August 31, 2024
Jerusalem – The campaign is being rolled out after a 10-month-old was paralysed by a mutated strain of the virus
A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio and prevent the spread of the virus has begun as Palestinians in the Hamas-governed coastal territory and the occupied West Bank reel from Israel’s campaigns in both regions.
Children in Gaza began receiving vaccines on Saturday, the Strip’s health ministry announced at a news conference, a day before the large-scale rollout and planned pause in fighting agreed to by Israel and the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
Associated Press reporters saw roughly 10 infants receiving doses of vaccine in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on Saturday afternoon.
Hours earlier, Gaza’s health ministry said hospitals had received 89 dead on Saturday, including 26 who died in an overnight Israeli bombardment, and 205 wounded – one of the highest daily tallies in months.
Meanwhile, parts of the West Bank remained on edge as Israel’s military continued its military campaign, the deadliest since the Israel-Hamas war began, and two car bombings by Palestinian militants near Israeli settlements left three soldiers injured.
Two car bombs exploded early on Saturday in Gush Etzion, a bloc of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israel’s military killed both Palestinian attackers after the bombs exploded in a compound in Karmei Zur and at a gas station, Israel’s military said. Three Israeli soldiers sustained minor injuries.
Palestinian health officials said Israel was holding the bodies of the attackers, naming the men as Muhammad Marqa and Zoodhi Afifeh.
Hamas did not claim the men as its fighters but called the attack a “heroic operation” and a “new slap to the occupation’s security system” in a statement. The Palestinian militant group said earlier this month after a bombing attack in Tel Aviv that it would continue such attacks.
The bombings took place as Israel continued its raid – which includes destruction of infrastructure, airstrikes and gun battles – into urban refugee camps in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, in the north of the volatile West Bank.
About 20 Palestinians have been killed since Israel’s incursion started on Tuesday, causing alarm among the international community that the war may widen beyond the Gaza Strip.
Israel has described the operation as a strategy to prevent attacks on Israeli civilians, which since the start of the war have increased in the West Bank, including near settlements that the international community largely considers illegal. In return, the Palestinian health ministry noted a surge in Palestinian deaths by Israeli forces, with 663 killed in the West Bank in the nearly 11 months since the war began.
In central Gaza, Israeli airstrikes hit a multi-story building housing displaced people in and around Nuseirat, a built-up refugee camp in central Gaza, as well as farther south in Khan Younis and northward in Gaza City, officials at hospitals in the three areas said on Saturday morning.
Among the dead were a physician and his family and a child whose right leg had been previously amputated, according to an initial list of casualties from the hospital and footage released on Saturday by civil defence officials who operated under Gaza’s Hamas-run government.
Israel is expected to pause some of its operations in Gaza on Sunday to allow health workers to roll out their campaign to administer polio vaccines to 650,000 Palestinian children, the WHO said earlier this week.
Officials said the pause would last at least nine hours and is a byproduct of an agreement with the WHO, and unrelated to ongoing ceasefire negotiations between Israel, Hamas and regional mediators.
The vaccination campaign comes after a case was discovered earlier this month for the first time in 25 years after doctors concluded a 10-month-old had been partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of the polio virus after not being vaccinated due to the war.
Healthcare workers in Gaza have been warning of the potential for a polio outbreak for months, as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has deepened throughout the war which broke out after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting about 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not say how many were militants.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to mediate a ceasefire that would see the remaining hostages released. But the talks have repeatedly petered out as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed “total victory” over Hamas, and the militant group has demanded a lasting ceasefire and a full withdrawal from the territory.
