Failure to deliver polio vaccination programme would be disastrous for children in Gaza and beyond, UN warns
Louise Wateridge, of the UN, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier about the polio vaccination programme starting on Sunday in Gaza:
The campaign will be in the middle area, the southern area and the northern area of the Gaza Strip.
She also outlined details of the rollout, which would require a follow-up:
From Sunday, we’re giving out two oral doses of the polio vaccination, and then four weeks after this initial round of campaigns, we will need to repeat the vaccination again, this is for 640,000 children across the Gaza Strip.”
She added:
It’s so important that we get this vaccination campaign out as soon as possible, and that we have the safety to do this, because the repercussions will be disastrous for not just children in the Gaza Strip, but children in the region. And they’ve already been put through so much.
Key events
Hamas commander in Jenin killed by Israeli police – Israeli military
Israeli border police killed a senior Hamas commander in the West Bank on Friday, the military said.
It said Wassem Hazem, identified as the commander of Hamas in the volatile city of Jenin, was killed in a car it said contained weapons, ammunition and large quantities of cash.
According to Reuters, the military said two other Hamas gunmen were killed by a drone while trying to escape from the vehicle.
UN relief agency, Unrwa, has said “more than 1,000 colleagues” are preparing to reach “hundreds of thousands of children” in the Gaza Strip with the polio vaccination campaign.
Over 1,000 @UNRWA colleagues are preparing to reach hundreds of thousands of children in the #GazaStrip with a critical polio vaccination campaign.
In the coming days, @UNRWA teams will start administering oral vaccines in health centres, mobile clinics, shelters & tent to tent. pic.twitter.com/0O0AcEdwDn
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 30, 2024
Here are some images coming to us over the wires.
Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, has posted on X ahead of the planned mass polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.
She said the area-specific humanitarian pauses must be respected and failure to do so would be an “unforgivable failure” for children in Gaza and the region.
Russell posted on X:
UNICEF is ready to start the first round of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza on Sunday to reach nearly 640K children. All parties MUST respect the area-specific humanitarian pauses to stop polio from spreading in Gaza and the region.
It’s very simple. If fighting doesn’t stop, polio vaccinators are unable to reach children. Gaza has been polio free for 25yrs until now. Failing to respect these pauses would be an unforgivable failure for the children in Gaza and the region who have already suffered so much.
Most of all, children in Gaza need a cease fire, protection from all forms of harm, access to health care, safe water and sanitation. And all hostages must be released unconditionally and reunited with loved ones.
It’s very simple. If fighting doesn’t stop, polio vaccinators are unable to reach children. Gaza has been polio free for 25yrs until now.
⁰Failing to respect these pauses would be an unforgivable failure for the children in Gaza and the region who have already suffered so much.— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) August 29, 2024
Julian Borger
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza aimed at “armed assailants” trying to hijack it but the charity that organised the aid said people killed in the strike were employees of the transport company it was working with.
The convoy, organised by the US-based NGO Anera, was carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah on Thursday evening at the time of the attack. Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF, under a deconfliction process intended to prevent aid vehicles being bombed.
Anera’s Palestine country director, Sandra Rasheed, said: “This is a shocking incident. The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed.
“Tragically, several individuals, all employed by the transportation company we work with, were killed in the attack. They were in the first vehicle of the convoy.”
Unconfirmed reports from Gaza said five people were killed in the airstrike.
An IDF statement confirmed the route had been coordinated, but claimed that “during the convoy’s movement, a number of armed assailants seized control of the vehicle in the front of the convoy (a Jeep) and began to lead it”.
It added: “After the takeover and further verification that a precise strike on the armed assailants’ vehicle can be carried out, a strike was conducted.
“No damage was caused to the other vehicles in the convoy and it reached its destination as planned. The strike on the armed assailants removed the threat of them seizing control over the humanitarian convoy.”
Read the full story here
Israel and Hamas agree to limited fighting pauses in Gaza to allow urgent polio vaccinations, says WHO
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider crisis in the Middle East.
A polio vaccination campaign in Gaza is planned to begin on Sunday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said.
The WHO said that Israel’s military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for the first round of vaccinations of 640,000 children against polio.
The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, with the pauses scheduled to take place between 6am and 3pm, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s senior official for the Palestinian territories.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events.
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The Israeli military said it had killed five more militants in a large-scale operation in the occupied West Bank early Thursday, including a well-known local commander. There was no immediate Palestinian confirmation of the death of Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, a commander in the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Tulkarem.
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza aimed at “armed assailants” trying to hijack it but the charity that organised the aid said people killed in the strike were employees of the transport company it was working with. The convoy, organised by the US-based NGO Anera, was carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah at the time of the attack. Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF. Anera’s Palestine country director, Sandra Rasheed, said: “This is a shocking incident. The convoy, which was coordinated by Anera and approved by Israeli authorities, included an Anera employee who was fortunately unharmed.”
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Israel told the United States that an initial review found that shots were fired at a clearly marked World Food Programme (WFP) vehicle in the Gaza Strip after a “communication error” between Israeli military units, the deputy US envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday. “We have urged them to immediately rectify the issues within their system,” deputy US ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told a UN security council meeting on Gaza. “Israel must not only take ownership for its mistakes, but also take concrete actions to ensure the IDF does not fire on UN personnel again.”
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The EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has launched a process that could lead to sanctions on Israeli ministers he said were responsible for “unacceptable hate messages” against Palestinians. Arriving at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Borrell said he had begun consultations with the EU’s 27 member states on whether they consider it “appropriate including in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers [who] have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians” and made proposals that “go clearly against international law” and incite war crimes.
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As salvage operations began on an abandoned Greek-flagged oil tanker with deck fires still burning from Houthi rebel attacks, the EU’s Red Sea naval mission Aspides said on Thursday that no oil spill had been detected. Yemen’s Houthi militants carried out multiple assaults, including planting bombs on the already disabled Sounion that is laden with about 1 million barrels of oil. On Wednesday, the Iran-aligned militants said they would allow salvage crews to tow the ship – which has been on fire since 23 August.
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Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris told CNN on Thursday that a ceasefire and hostage release deal was needed in Gaza while she reiterated support for Israel and maintained her position that “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” Harris said that she would not change US president Joe Biden’s policy on supplying Israel with arms for its war in Gaza if elected in November.