LAST UPDATE | 29 Aug 2024

ISRAEL HAS AGREED to at least three days of “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to allow for polio vaccines to be administered.

The World Health Organisation confirmed the development this afternoon.

“The way we discussed and agreed, the campaign will start on the first of September, in central Gaza, for three days, and there will be a humanitarian pause during the vaccination,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the agency’s representative in Palestine.

The move follows the first confirmation a case of polio in Gaza in 25 years last week.

A ten-month-old baby has been paralysed due to the virus, which has also been detected in wastewater samples in Gaza. 

The administration of the vaccines is intended to cover both southern and northern areas of Gaza, which will each get their own three-day pauses.

The WHO has said that Israel has agreed to allow an additional day of pauses if necessary.

It is expected that the vaccine campaign will provide two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 to around 640,000 children under the age of ten.

The UN, WHO and EU had called on Israel to halt its attacks on Gaza to allow polio vaccines to be administered after the alarming discovery of its first case in a quarter of a century.

A statement on behalf of top EU diplomat Josep Borrells issued earlier today urged immediate humanitarian pauses to allow all children in Gaza to be vaccinated.

“An epidemic among a population already weakened by over 10 months of fighting and displacement, malnourishment, lack of basic health services, and deplorable sanitary conditions, as well as further spread internationally, must be avoided,” the statement said.

Additional reporting by AFP