While he welcomed the initial humanitarian pauses during the campaign, Peeperkorn confessed nonetheless that the “area-specific humanitarian pauses” are not “ideal”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Rik Peeperkorn announced Thursday that the organization received an initial commitment from Israel for “area-specific humanitarian pauses” during a polio vaccination campaign set to start in the Gaza Strip on September 1.
The WHO representative said in a virtual press briefing from Gaza that the campaign will be conducted in two rounds stressing that it is of utmost importance to reach 90 percent vaccination coverage to ensure containing the polio outbreak.
While he welcomed the initial humanitarian pauses during the campaign, Peeperkorn confessed nonetheless that the “area-specific humanitarian pauses” are not “ideal” but stressed that they will “try to manage, to work with that.”
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Peeperkorn appealed to all parties to allow children and families safe access to the designated health facilities during the pause.
He assured that children who are unable to access the health facilities will still receive the polio vaccination.
Peeperkon revealed that the humanitarian pause comprises a three-day pause in the central area of Gaza to be followed by another three-day pause in the south of the Strip and the next three-day pause in the northern area, adding that the vaccination campaign will start at the central zone of Gaza.
“The campaign will be extended by one day per zone, or even more when necessary,” the WHO representative said.
“We have 392 fixed sites and we have almost 300 mobile teams,” Peeperkon added.
According to the WHO representative, the humanitarian pauses are scheduled for eight hours daily.
“We take that from six in the morning to three (in the afternoon). But we want to make sure that vaccinations take place, for example, between six and 12 or six and one (noon),” Peeperkon clarified.
He announced that 1.26 million doses of the vaccine and 500 vaccine carriers are already in the besieged Strip and an additional 1,000 vaccine doses are expected to arrive soon.
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Campaign Welcomed
The Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also welcomed on X the humanitarian pauses for the polio vaccination campaign.
“We welcome the commitment to humanitarian pauses in specific areas and suspension of evacuation orders for the implementation of the campaign. But the only lasting medicine is peace. The only way to fully protect all the children of Gaza is a ceasefire,” he stressed.
The resistance movement Hamas was reported to have welcomed the UN request for humanitarian pauses to launch the vaccination campaign.
Hamas Political Bureau member and spokesperson Basem Naim expressed in a statement the readiness of the movement to cooperate with international organizations to secure the success of the vaccination campaign, in the interest of “serving and protecting more than 650 thousand Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip.”
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“We have asked the international community to oblige Israel to fulfill its obligations in the international law as an occupying force,” the statement read.
The vaccination campaign will be executed in collaboration with the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
WHO announced last week that a 10-month-old child from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza had developed paralysis after contracting the Type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
The organization mentioned that the re-emergence of polio in Gaza was primarily due to the collapse of the health system and widespread environmental destruction.
Genocide Continues
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 40,602 Palestinians have been killed, and 93,855 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(Anadolu, PC)
