Israel has halted some of its military operations in Gaza to allow health workers to launch a polio vaccine drive for some 640,000 Palestinian children.
The humanitarian agreement struck last week will see Israel’s Defence Forces observe three staggered pauses of fighting in central, southern and northern Gaza, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) officials.
MORE ABOUT THE AGREEMENT
The first pause began yesterday in central Gaza, where health workers will administer their vaccines before moving to southern Gaza and finishing the campaign in the north over a total of nine days.
WHO’s representative for the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters the pauses will last from 6am until 3pm and that each block of three days can be extended by an extra day if health workers say it is required.
REASON FOR THE HUMANITARIAN PAUSES
Israel’s agreement to humanitarian pauses came a week after WHO officials confirmed a Palestinian baby had been paralysed after contracting the virus – the first confirmed case in Gaza for more than a quarter-century.
The vaccination campaign in Gaza is targeting 640,000 children under 10, who will each receive two drops of oral polio vaccine in two rounds – the second to be given four weeks after the first.
READ ALSO – Man is arrested after ‘trying to KIDNAP a two-year-old child from their pram in TK Maxx
‘I’m not going to say this is the ideal way forward. But this is a workable way forward,’ Peeperkorn said, adding that the humanitarian pauses are critical so families can bring their children to get vaccinated and get back to where they are staying by 3pm to avoid the Israeli onslaught.
‘We have an agreement on that, so we expect that all parties will stick to that,’ he said.
WHAT WHO SAID
WHO said health workers need to vaccinate at least 90% of children in Gaza to stop the transmission of polio.
The campaign will involve more than 2,100 health workers from UN agencies and the Gaza Ministry of Health, working at hundreds of sites across Gaza and with mobile teams.
But the humanitarian pauses do not constitute a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that mediators US, Egypt and Qatar have long been seeking, including in talks that are ongoing this week.
