Israel has agreed to a series of “humanitarian breaks” in Gaza to allow children to be vaccinated against polio, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
The campaign will aim to vaccinate about 640,000 children across the Gaza Strip and will begin on Sunday, WHO chief Rik Peeperkorn said.
It will be presented in three different sections, in the center, south and north of the plot. During each stage, fighting will stop for three consecutive days between 06:00 and 15:00 local time.
This agreement comes days after UN officials said a A 10-month-old child was partially paralyzed after receiving the first case of polio in Gaza for 25 years.
About 1.26m doses of oral polio vaccine 2 (nOPV2) are already in Gaza, with an additional 400,000 doses to arrive soon.
Vaccinations will be administered by UN staff and other local health workers. More than 2,000 health and community outreach workers have been trained to administer the vaccine.
Louise Waterridge, the UN spokeswoman in Gaza, called for a ceasefire to allow the vaccination program to operate safely.
“We can’t vaccinate children under a sky full of bombs and strikes, we can’t vaccinate children who are running for their lives,” he told Radio 4’s Today program on Friday.
“Any operation by the military while we are trying to carry out a vaccination campaign will interfere with our ability to deliver these vaccines to children,” he explained.
Ms Waterridge said the children would receive two oral doses this week, and would need a repeat vaccination four weeks later.
The WHO aims to achieve a 90% vaccination rate across the country, which is necessary to stop the spread of the virus in Gaza.
The agreement is in place for a fourth additional day of vaccination and a temporary suspension of aid if necessary to achieve that level of vaccination.
Poliovirus is highly contagious and is often spread through feces and contaminated water.
It can cause disfigurement and paralysis, and it can be fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.
The WHO says vaccination levels in Gaza and the occupied West Bank were good before the conflict. Polio vaccination coverage is estimated to be 99% by 2022, although it dropped to 89% last year, according to the latest data.
The Israeli military said in July it had begun vaccinating its soldiers against the disease.
Hamas chief Basem Naim told Reuters news agency: “We are ready to cooperate with international organizations to defend this campaign, work and protect more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the series of three-day breaks “is not a ceasefire”.
James Kariuki, the UK’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, said he “very much welcomed” the vaccination programme.
“Now we need to see this work and these breaks need to be long enough to deliver the necessary aid. When the campaign starts and thousands of vulnerable and homeless children gather in the vaccination centers, they must all be protected,” he added. .
Professor Hagai Levine, spokesperson for the Hostages Families Forum – a group that wants more steps to be taken to free the Israeli hostages – urged health workers to ensure that those still in captivity are included in the vaccination campaign.
Israel launched a military operation in Gaza in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7 by Hamas, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 captured.
More than 40,530 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
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