JERUSALEM, 31 AUg: A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio and prevent the spread of the virus began on Saturday, Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry said, as Palestinians in both the Hamas-governed enclave and the occupied West Bank reeled from Israel\u2019s ongoing military offensives.
\nA small number of children in Gaza began receiving vaccines a day before the large-scale vaccine rollout and planned pause in fighting agreed to by Israel and the U.N. World Health Organization. The WHO confirmed the larger campaign would begin Sunday.
\n\u201cThere must be a cease-fire so that the teams can reach everyone targeted by this campaign,\u201d said Dr. Yousef Abu Al-Rish, deputy health minister, describing scenes of sewage running through crowded tent camps in Gaza.
\nAssociated Press journalists saw about 10 children receiving vaccine doses at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.
\n\u201cI was terrified and waiting for the vaccination to arrive and for everyone to receive it,\u201d said Amal Shaheen, whose daughter received a dose.
\nIsrael is expected to pause some operations in Gaza on Sunday to allow health workers to administer vaccines to some 640,000 Palestinian children. Officials said the pause would last at least nine hours and is unrelated to ongoing cease-fire negotiations.
\n\u201cWe will vaccinate up to 10-year-olds and God willing we will be fine,\u201d said Dr. Bassam Abu Ahmed, general coordinator of public health programs at Al-Quds University.
\nThe three-day vaccination campaign comes after the first polio case in 25 years in Gaza was discovered this month. Doctors concluded a 10-month-old had been partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of the virus after not being vaccinated due to fighting.
\nHealthcare workers in Gaza have been warning of the potential for a polio outbreak for months. The humanitarian crisis has deepened during the war that broke out after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and abducting around 250. Israel\u2019s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were militants.
\nHours earlier, the Health Ministry said hospitals recei-ved 89 dead on Saturday, including 26 who died in an overnight Israeli bombard-ment, and 205 wounded \u2014 one of the highest daily tallies in months.
\nMeanwhile, parts of the West Bank remained on edge as Israel\u2019s military continued its large-scale military campaign, the deadliest since the Israel-Hamas war began, and two car bombings by Palestinian militants near Israeli settlements left three soldiers injured. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JERUSALEM, 31 AUg: A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio and prevent the spread of the virus began on Saturday, Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry said, as Palestinians in both the Hamas-governed enclave and the occupied West Bank reeled from Israel\u2019s ongoing military offensives. A small number of children in Gaza began receiving vaccines a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}