For three days

Israel agrees to ceasefire for polio vaccination campaign

(Bild: APA/AFP)

According to the United Nations, Israel has agreed to daily ceasefires in the Gaza Strip from Sunday for a polio vaccination campaign. In three parts of the coastal strip, fighting is to cease from morning to afternoon on three consecutive days. 

The representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Gaza, Rik Peeperkorn, referred to a promise made by the Israeli authority responsible for Palestinian affairs, Cogat.

90 percent of children to be vaccinated 
"It has been agreed that the campaign will be carried out in stages over three days. We will start on the first of September and begin in the central Gaza Strip for three days, followed by the southern Gaza Strip and then the northern Gaza Strip," said Peeperkorn. It is possible that a fourth day per region will be needed to reach at least 90 percent of the children. The daily ceasefires are to begin at 6.00 a.m. and end in the afternoon at 2.00 to 3.00 p.m.

Standing sewage like this one next to emergency shelters in Deir el-Balah is contaminated with polio viruses.(Bild: APA/Bashar TALEB / AFP)

Polio viruses discovered in wastewater
Following the discovery of polio viruses in wastewater, the United Nations decided to vaccinate more than 600,000 children in the Gaza Strip against the virus in two rounds of vaccinations. Vaccines for 1.25 million people have already been transported to the coastal strip via the Kerem Shalom border crossing. UN representatives had called for the doses to be administered to allow a ceasefire for polio vaccinations for hundreds of thousands of children in the war zone after almost eleven months of war.

Since the beginning of the war following the Hamas terror attack on the Israeli border area on October 7 last year, many babies in the Gaza Strip have been unable to be vaccinated. The terrible hygienic conditions in the coastal strip, where numerous internally displaced people often have to survive in very confined spaces and clean water is scarce, could contribute to the rapid spread of the disease.