A CAMPAIGN to inoculate children against polio and prevent the spread of the virus has begun in Gaza.
Children in Gaza began receiving vaccines on Saturday (August 31), as Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled coastal territory and the occupied West Bank no longer feel the impact of Israel’s campaign in both areas.
The Gaza Strip’s health ministry announced the polio vaccination drive at a press conference, a day before a large-scale rollout and a planned lull in fighting agreed by Israel and the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO).
It was reported that around 10 babies received vaccine doses at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Saturday (31/8) afternoon.
Hours earlier, Gaza’s Health Ministry said hospitals had received 89 dead on Saturday, including 26 killed in Israeli bombardments overnight and 205 wounded.
Meanwhile, parts of the West Bank remain tense as the Israeli military continues its deadliest military campaign since the Israel-Hamas war began and two car bombings by Palestinian militants near Israeli settlements left three soldiers wounded.
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Two car bombs exploded early Saturday in Gush Etzion, an Israeli settlement bloc in the West Bank. The Israeli military killed both Palestinian attackers after the bombs went off at a compound in Karmei Zur and at a gas station. Three Israeli soldiers suffered minor injuries.
Palestinian health officials said Israel was holding the bodies of the attackers and named the men as Muhammad Marqa and Zoodhi Afifeh.
Hamas did not claim the men as its fighters but called the raid a heroic operation and a new blow to the occupation’s security system in a statement. The Palestinian militant group said earlier this month after a bomb attack in Tel Aviv that it would continue similar attacks.
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The bombings came as Israel continued its attacks on urban refugee camps in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, in the volatile north of the West Bank.
Some 20 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli offensive began on Tuesday, raising concerns among the international community that the war may spread beyond the Gaza Strip.
Israel describes the operation as a strategy to deter attacks on Israeli civilians, which have increased since the start of the war in the West Bank, including near settlements largely considered illegal by the international community. In return, the Palestinian Health Ministry has recorded a spike in Palestinian deaths by Israeli forces, with 663 killed in the West Bank in the nearly 11 months since the war began.
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In central Gaza, Israeli airstrikes hit multi-storey buildings housing refugees in and around Nuseirat, a refugee camp built in central Gaza, as well as further south in Khan Younis and to the north in Gaza City.
Among the dead were a doctor and his family and a child whose right leg had previously been amputated, according to an initial list of casualties from the hospital and footage released Saturday by civil defense officials operating under Gaza’s Hamas government.
“Israel is expected to suspend some of its operations in Gaza on Sunday to allow health workers to launch their campaign to vaccinate 650,000 Palestinian children with polio,” the WHO said earlier this week.
Officials said the pause would last at least nine hours and was a by-product of the agreement with the WHO, and was not related 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 child had been partially paralyzed by a mutation of the polio virus after being denied vaccination due to the war.
Health officials in Gaza have been warning of a potential polio outbreak for months, as Gaza’s humanitarian crisis deepened during the war that erupted after Hamas-led militants stormed southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250.
The retaliatory attacks have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which did not say how many were militants.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a ceasefire that would see the remaining hostages released. But talks have repeatedly stalled as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vows a total victory over Hamas, and the militant group demands a long-term ceasefire and a full withdrawal from the territory. (theguardian/S-1)
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