An Israeli soldier gestures as an armoured personnel carrier (APC) maneuvers near the border with the Gaza Strip, at an undisclosed location in southern Israel, 02 July 2024. The Israeli military stated on 02 July that it continued operations in the areas of Shejaiya, Rafah, and central Gaza. More than 37,000 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), since Hamas militants launched an attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, and the Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank which followed it. EPA-EFE/ABIR SULTANBy Michelle Nichols
The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's senior official for the Palestinian territories. He said the agreement was for the pauses to take place between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m.(0300-1200 GMT)
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. Peeperkorn added that there was an agreement to extend the humanitarian pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.
The WHO confirmed on Aug. 23 that at least one baby has been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years. The U.N. Security Council will meet later on Thursday on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
"We are ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this campaign, serving and protecting more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip," Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters.
The Israeli military's humanitarian unit (COGAT) 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 centers where the vaccinations will be administered."
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Additional reporting by Nidal Al Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Deepa Babington)
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