Israeli authorities have agreed to a series of three-day "humanitarian pauses" in central, southern and northern Gaza to allow children to be vaccinated against polio, a World Health Organization official said today.
"What we discussed and what was accepted is that the (vaccination) campaign will start on September 1 in central Gaza, (with a duration of) three days, and there will be humanitarian breaks" every day for a few hours, Rik Peeperkorn said. , WHO representative in Gaza, during a video conference for journalists.
The same system was then planned for the south and north of the territory, which is under attack from combat operations in Israel's war against the Palestinian militant movement Hamas.
The war began on October 7 last year.
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At least 40.602 Palestinians have been killed and 93.855 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Israel's launch of major military operations in the West Bank on Wednesday was "deeply worrying".
In a tweet on Thursday, Guterres strongly condemned "the loss of life, including that of children, and called for an immediate halt to these operations."
Earlier, his spokesman, Stefan Dižarik, said that the UN Secretary General called on Israel to protect civilians and appealed to its forces to "exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when it is strictly unavoidable to protect lives", reports the Guardian.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested there could be a partial suspension of military operations in Gaza to allow small children to be vaccinated against polio, the Guardian reports.
A statement from Netanyahu's office denied a claim by Israeli television that there would be a general truce during the vaccination campaign, which begins at the weekend, but said that "certain places" in Gaza had been approved for this purpose.
"The proposal was presented to the security cabinet and received the support of relevant experts," the announcement stated.
The brief may be deliberately imprecise. Far-right elements of Israel's ruling coalition are staunchly opposed to any form of truce or relief for Gaza's Palestinian population, but aid agencies have made it clear that the polio outbreak, Gaza's first in 25 years, could almost certainly spread to Israel. if not immediately restrained.
Israeli media reported that the suspension of operations was requested by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during a visit to Israel last week.
The first of two rounds of vaccinations is due to start on Saturday in an urgent bid to stop the spread of the virus after it was found earlier this month in a 10-month-old baby suffering from paralysis of one leg.
More than 25.000 vials of vaccine, enough for over a million doses, arrived in Gaza along with the equipment needed to cool them during transport. However, health experts warn that it would be virtually impossible to successfully carry out vaccination under the bombardment.
To prevent the spread of the disease, aid agencies need to reach 90 percent of the estimated 640.000 children under 10 in Gaza. This is already challenging, given that Palestinians are subject to an increasing number of evacuation orders from the Israeli military, forcing them to congregate in increasingly smaller and more remote areas.
One possibility suggested by Netanyahu's announcement is that Israeli bombardment would be halted in different areas of Gaza, sequentially, to allow aid workers to move from one area to another with vaccines.
The High Representative of the European Union (EU) Josep Borelj will ask the member states of the Union to introduce sanctions against the Israeli ministers who are guilty, as he said, of spreading "hatred" towards the Palestinians.
He said he had "initiated a process to ask member states, if they wish," to impose sanctions against ministers he did not name, but diplomatic sources said the proposal referred to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Among other things, Smotrich previously said that "perhaps it is just and moral" to allow the starvation of two dear people in Gaza until Hamas returns the Israeli hostages.
Several countries, including Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic, have defended Israel's right to defend itself and blocked tough measures against the Israeli authorities.
Almost one in two Germans have little or no confidence in the German media's coverage of the war in the Middle East, a new poll has found.
Many feel that the German media is biased in favor of Israel, while the Palestinian perspective is too little represented.
The Israeli army announced today that in an "anti-terrorist operation" in several cities and refugee camps in the north of the occupied West Bank, it killed "five terrorists who were hiding in a mosque".
Today is the second day of the West Bank operation.
The Israeli army announced yesterday that it had "eliminated" nine Palestinian fighters after launching an operation on Jenin, Tulkarem, Tubas and refugee camps during the night.
Armed groups fighting against Israel are especially active in these cities and in the refugee camps.
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Israel's military said yesterday it failed to protect civilians when Jewish settlers launched a deadly attack on a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, amid growing international pressure on Israel to crack down on such violence.
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Conflict between Israel and Hamas - 328th day.
Israeli fire hit a United Nations vehicle in Gaza, part of a humanitarian convoy coordinated with the Israeli authorities, the world organization announced last night.
The incident, in which there were no injuries or deaths, occurred on Tuesday, the UN spokesman announced and recalled previous similar events.
"Last night, a clearly identified UN humanitarian vehicle, part of a convoy that was fully coordinated with the (Israeli armed forces) was hit 10 times by Israeli fire," said UN Secretary General's spokesman Stefan Dižarik.
According to him, only the body armor saved the two men in the vehicle.
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