WHO: Israel agrees to temporary truces during vaccination campaign in Gaza

The Israeli military has agreed to three separate, three-day temporary ceasefires in the Gaza Strip to allow more than 640,000 children to be vaccinated against polio, a World Health Organization official said on Thursday.

Reuters quoted Rick Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization representative in the West Bank and Gaza, as saying that the vaccination campaign is scheduled to begin next Sunday. He explained that the agreement stipulates that the truces will be between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. local time (3-12 GMT).

He added that the campaign will start in central Gaza with a temporary truce in the fighting for 3 days, then move to southern Gaza, where there will be another truce for 3 days, followed by northern Gaza. Peeperkorn explained that there is an agreement to extend the humanitarian truce in each area for a fourth day if necessary.

Peeperkorn pointed out that the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and partners, will give more than 640,000 children under 10 years old two doses of polio vaccination in Gaza.

"There is an agreement, and we hope that all parties will respect it. Otherwise, it will be impossible to implement an actual (vaccination) campaign," Peeperkorn added.

For his part, Hamas leader Bassem Naim told Reuters, “We are ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this campaign that serves and protects more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip.”

Channel 13, a private Hebrew channel, said on Wednesday evening that Israel had agreed to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s request to implement a truce in Gaza (without specifying its duration or start date), not as part of negotiations to release detainees, but for the purpose of vaccinating the population against polio.

She added that the decision was made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the security establishment, and the ministers of the security cabinet were not informed, but Netanyahu's office denied to the channel that there was talk of a truce, and said that the report about the truce was incorrect and that the talk was about allocating specific places in the Strip to give vaccinations.

On August 16, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a 7-day humanitarian truce to implement a polio campaign targeting 640,000 children.

This call came after the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the registration of the first confirmed case of polio virus in the Gaza Strip, in a 10-month-old child, and the World Health Organization confirmed this matter on August 23.

With American support, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7, leaving more than 134,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amidst massive destruction and deadly famine.

In the shadow of this war, which Israel continues in complete disregard of the appeals of the international community, children in Gaza are facing tragic conditions, including deprivation of education, severe malnutrition, and failure to receive necessary vaccinations, which threatens their health conditions in the future.

Source: Anadolu Agency