The UN World Health Organization said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for polio vaccinations for hundreds of thousands of children after a baby contracted the first confirmed case in 25 years in the Palestinian territory. The vaccination campaign will start Sunday in central Gaza, the AP reports. A humanitarian pause will last from 6am until 3pm for three days and can be extended by an additional day if needed, said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories.
The effort, which has been coordinated with Israeli authorities, will then move to southern Gaza and finally northern Gaza for similar pauses, he told a UN press conference by video from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. "I'm not going to say this is the ideal way forward. But this is a workable way forward," Peeperkorn said. The vaccination campaign is aimed at 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. Peeperkorn said the humanitarian pauses are critical so families can bring their children to get vaccinated and get back to where they are staying by 3pm.
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, per the AP. The humanitarian pauses are not a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that mediators including the US have long been seeking. Hamas is "ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this campaign," according to a statement from Basem Naim, a member of Hamas' political bureau.
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