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Key Points
- A World Health Organization official says Israel and Hamas have agreed to three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza.
- The pauses will allow the vaccination of some 640,000 children against polio, which has re-emerged in the enclave.
- The WHO has confirmed at least one baby has been paralysed by the virus, the first case in the territory in 25 years.
Hamas and Israel have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for the vaccination of some 640,000 children against polio, according to a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official.
The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s senior official for the Palestinian territories, said on Thursday.
He said the agreement was for the pauses to take place between 6pm and 3am local time (1pm to 10pm AEST).
He said the campaign would start 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.
“We are ready to cooperate with international organisations to secure this campaign, serving and protecting more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas official Basem Naim told the Reuters news agency.
The Israeli military’s humanitarian unit said on Wednesday that the vaccination campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach the medical centres where the vaccinations will be administered”.
Peeperkorn added that there was an agreement to extend the humanitarian pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.
A second round of vaccination would be required four weeks after the first round, he said.
“At least 90 per cent of coverage is needed during each round of the campaign in order to stop the outbreak and prevent international spread of polio,” Mike Ryan, WHO emergencies director, told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday during a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Polio (or poliomyelitis) is a highly infectious disease that transmits mainly through contact with contaminated faeces, water or food.
While it mainly affects children under five, it can be contracted by anyone who is unvaccinated. There is no cure, and vaccination is the only way it can be prevented.
The WHO confirmed on 23 August that at least one baby has been paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the .
The latest escalation in conflict between Hamas and Israel was triggered on October 7 when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis.
The assault has also led to genocide allegations at the International Court of Justice that Israel denies.