The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Thursday that Israeli authorities have agreed to establish “humanitarian pauses” for the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip, which will begin this Sunday.
The vaccination campaign is expected to begin on Sunday, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s top official for the Palestinian territories. He said the agreement called for breaks to take place between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. (0300-1200 GMT).
He said the campaign would begin in central Gaza with a three-day pause in fighting, then move to southern Gaza, where there would be another three-day pause, followed by northern Gaza. Peeperkorn added that there was an agreement to extend the humanitarian pause in each area for a fourth day if necessary.
The WHO confirmed on August 23 that at least one baby had been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years. The UN Security Council will meet later Thursday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“We are ready to cooperate with international organizations to carry out this campaign, which cares for and protects more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters.
The Israeli army’s humanitarian unit (COGAT) said on Wednesday that the vaccination campaign would be carried out in coordination with the Israeli army “as part of routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach medical centers where the vaccines will be administered.”
The latest bloodbath in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted on October 7, when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli counts.
Israel’s subsequent attack on the Hamas-run enclave has since killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, sparking a food crisis and prompting accusations of genocide at the international court of justice, which Israel denies.
