UN’s Gaza polio vaccinations will rely on pauses in fighting

UN’s Gaza polio vaccinations will rely on pauses in fighting
Unrelenting air strikes by Israel more than 10 months into its war against Gaza rulers Hamas, restrictions of aid entering the besieged territory and hot summer temperatures all threaten the viability of a life-saving inoculation drive, after the first polio case in 25 years was recorded on August 16 in the besieged Palestinian territory. (File/AFP)
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Updated 30 August 2024
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UN’s Gaza polio vaccinations will rely on pauses in fighting

UN’s Gaza polio vaccinations will rely on pauses in fighting
  • WHO aims to vaccinate 90 percent of Gaza’s children
  • 1.2 million vaccine doses delivered, 400,000 more en route
  • Pauses in fighting agreed for vaccinations

GAZA: United Nations officials are preparing to launch a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza on Sunday that will rely on a series of limited pauses in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants holding out in the besieged enclave.

The World Health Organization says it will need to vaccinate at least 90 percent of the children in Gaza for the campaign to succeed but it faces huge challenges in the Palestinian enclave, which has been largely destroyed by nearly 11 months of war.

The campaign has been organized after the WHO said on Aug. 23 that a baby had been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years, and UN agencies appealed for an urgent vaccination effort.
Some 1.2 million vaccine doses have already been delivered to Gaza ahead of the campaign, which aims to vaccinate more than 640,000 children, a WHO official said on Friday. An additional 400,000 doses are en route to the territory, said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territories.
The planned pauses are unconnected with negotiations that have been underway for months to try to agree a halt in the fighting in Gaza and a return of Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that coordinates administration in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the pauses would be coordinated as part of a series of humanitarian pauses implemented periodically since the start of the Israeli campaign in Gaza last October.
Hamas has also agreed to the pauses, which the UN says are needed for the campaign to begin at all. A second round of vaccinations will be needed once the first round is complete.
The WHO has said the Israeli military and Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting to allow the first round of vaccinations to be undertaken by UN agencies in coordination with the Palestinian health ministry.
More than 2,180 staff have been trained to provide vaccinations and information about the campaign to people in Gaza.
The pauses, due to run for three days between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m (0300-1200 GMT), will begin in central Gaza, before moving to south and then northern Gaza. However due to the logistical and security challenges facing the campaign, an extra day may be needed for each round, WHO officials have said.
Most of Gaza’s hospitals have been damaged or destroyed with only 17 out of the 36 hospitals in the territory partially functional and less than half of the 132 primary health centers still operational, according to WHO figures.


Sending a THAAD air defense system to Israel adds to strain on US Army forces

Sending a THAAD air defense system to Israel adds to strain on US Army forces
Updated 6 sec ago
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Sending a THAAD air defense system to Israel adds to strain on US Army forces

Sending a THAAD air defense system to Israel adds to strain on US Army forces
  • “Everybody wants US Army air defense forces,” Gen. Randy George, Army chief of staff, said Monday as he and Wormuth took questions from journalists at the Association of the US Army’s annual conference. “This is our most deployed formation”

WASHINGTON: The deployment of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel and roughly 100 soldiers to operate it will add to already difficult strains on the Army’s air defense forces and potential delays in modernizing its missile defense systems, Army leaders said Monday.
The service’s top two leaders declined to provide details on the deployment ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over the weekend. But they spoke broadly about their concerns as the demand for THAAD and Patriot missile batteries grows because of the war in Ukraine and the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas militants.
“The air defense, artillery community is the most stressed. They have the highest ‘optempo’ really of any part of the Army,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said, using a phrase meaning the pace of operations. “We’re just constantly trying to be as disciplined as we can, and give Secretary Austin the information he needs to accurately assess the strain on the force when he’s considering future operational deployments.”
Wormuth said the Army has to be careful about “what we take on. But of course, in a world this volatile, you know, sometimes we have to do what we have to do.”
The Pentagon announced the THAAD deployment Sunday, saying it was authorized at the direction of President Joe Biden. US officials said the system will be moved from a location in the continental United States to Israel and that it will take a number of days for it and the soldiers to arrive. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of troop movements.
The move adds to what have been growing tensions within the Defense Department about what weapons the US can afford to send to Ukraine, Israel or elsewhere and the resulting risks to America’s military readiness and its ability to protect the nation.
“Everybody wants US Army air defense forces,” Gen. Randy George, Army chief of staff, said Monday as he and Wormuth took questions from journalists at the Association of the US Army’s annual conference. “This is our most deployed formation.”
The decision to send the THAAD came as Israel is widely believed to be preparing a military response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack, when it fired roughly 180 missiles into Israel. Israel already has a multilayered air defense system, but a Hezbollah drone attack on an army base Sunday killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others, underscoring the potential need for greater protection.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon have been clashing since Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets over the border in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza. The Sunday drone attack was Hezbollah’s deadliest strike since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
Since the THAAD deployment only involves about 100 soldiers, it won’t add a tremendous amount of additional strain on air defense forces, Wormuth said at the conference.
But it adds to the pace of their deployments. Since the frenetic pace of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has subsided, the military has tried to ensure that service members have sufficient time at home to train and reset between deployments.
Shrinking that so-called dwell time can have an impact on the Army’s ability to keep good soldiers in the force.
“They’re very good, but obviously deploying for a year and coming back for a year and deploying for a year — it’s tough to do for anybody,” George said.
He said the Army is looking at a range of ways to limit the impact on recruiting and retention, including growing the force and modernizing the systems so that it takes fewer soldiers to operate them.
But the repeated deployments makes it difficult to get the systems into the depots where they can be upgraded.
As a result, Wormuth said, Army leaders are trying to make their arguments as clear as possible when combatant commanders go to Austin and ask for another Patriot system in the Middle East or another one for Ukraine.
“We need to be able to bring these units home to be able to go through that modernization process,” she said. “So we’re trying to lay that out for Secretary Austin so that he can weigh those risks — essentially current versus future risks — as he makes recommendations to the president about whether to send the Patriot here or there.”

 


Hezbollah’s drones are a fierce and evasive threat to Israel

Hezbollah’s drones are a fierce and evasive threat to Israel
Updated 20 min 16 sec ago
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Hezbollah’s drones are a fierce and evasive threat to Israel

Hezbollah’s drones are a fierce and evasive threat to Israel
  • The video shows drones on launchers and at the end displays a caption that reads: “Our capabilities are intact”

TEL AVIV, Israel: One of the worst mass casualty strikes on Israel in a year of war came not from dozens of Iranian ballistic missiles nor the repeated barrages of rocket fire launched by Hamas and Hezbollah. Instead, it was a single drone.
The unmanned aerial vehicle, laden with explosives, evaded Israel’s multilayered air-defense system and slammed into a mess hall at a military training camp deep inside Israel, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens.
It’s the latest achievement for Hezbollah’s drone fleet and has shined a light on Israel’s struggle over the past year of war to knock down unmanned aircraft incoming from as far away as Yemen, Iraq and Iran.
Over the years, Israel has built up its aerial defense array to provide broad protection against short-range rocket fire and medium- and long-range missiles, although experts caution it is not airtight. While the system has taken down drones repeatedly, many have penetrated Israel’s airspace and sidestepped its defenses, in some cases with deadly results.
The drone traversed Israeli airspace unimpeded
On Sunday evening, reports emerged of a mass casualty event about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the Lebanese border. A drone had slammed into a mess hall filled with troops eating dinner, according to Israeli media, killing four soldiers and wounding 67 people.
Minutes earlier, air raid sirens had blared in northern Israel as the aircraft flew overhead. But no sirens sounded at the base, giving the soldiers no advance warning and indicating that the drone may have fallen off Israel’s radar.
An Israeli security official said Israel was still investigating how the drone made it through Israel’s air defenses. A pair of drones initially entered Israeli airspace, but while one was shot down, the other one continued to its target.
Hezbollah, which said the attack was in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon, said the drone was “able to penetrate the Israeli air defense radars without being detected” and reach its target. It claimed it had outsmarted Israel’s air defenses by simultaneously launching dozens of missiles and “squadrons” of drones simultaneously.
It was the second deadly drone strike in just two weeks. Earlier this month, a drone launched from Iraq killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded roughly two dozen, according to Israeli media. On Friday, during a major Jewish holiday, a Hezbollah drone slammed into a nursing home in central Israel, causing damage.
“We already have six dead in the past 10 days from drones. That’s too much,” said Ran Kochav, a former head of the Israeli military’s aerial defense command.
Drones, he said, “have become a real threat.”
Drones are harder to detect and track than rockets or missiles
Drones, or UAVs, are unmanned aircraft that can be operated from afar. Drones can enter, surveil and attack enemy territory more discreetly than missiles and rockets. Israel has a formidable arsenal of drones, capable of carrying out spy missions and attacks. It has developed a drone capable of reaching archenemy Iran, some 1500 kilometers (1,000 miles) away.
But Israel’s enemies have caught Israel off-guard on a number of occasions over the past year, often with deadly consequences. In July, a drone launched from Yemen traveled some 270 kilometers (160 miles) from Israel’s southern tip, all the way to Tel Aviv, slamming into a downtown building and killing one person without it having been intercepted.
The Israeli security official said drones are harder to detect for a number of reasons: They fly slowly and often include plastic components, having a weaker thermal footprint with radar systems than powerful rockets and missiles. The trajectory is also harder to track. Drones can have roundabout flight paths, can come from any direction, fly lower to the ground and — because they are much smaller than rockets — can be mistaken for birds.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation into the mess hall strike was still underway.
Kochav said that Israel spent years focusing on strengthening its air defense systems to improve protection against rockets and missiles. But drones were not seen as a top priority. During the current fighting, that has meant Israel’s ability to detect and intercept drones is not as successful as its capabilities in the face of rockets and missiles, Kochav said.
Hezbollah’s drone program receives support from Iran
Hezbollah began using Iranian-made drones after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 and sent the first reconnaissance Mirsad drone over Israel’s airspace in 2004. Hezbollah’s drone program still receives substantial assistance from Iran, and the UAVs are believed to be assembled by experts of the militant group in Lebanon.
Drones have become an “Iranian-inspired, strategic system” for Hezbollah, according to Tal Beeri, the director of research for The Alma Research and Education Center, a think tank that studies Hezbollah and Israel’s north. The militant group has launched roughly 1,500 surveillance and attack drones since it began striking Israel in October 2023, according to the group’s count.
The attack drones, which Beeri said often hit civilian targets, have a payload of 10 kilograms (22 lbs) of explosives and can fly hundreds of kilometers (miles). He said Hezbollah in May used for the first and only time a drone that was able to fire an anti-tank missile and that it may possess more.
Hezbollah has also used drones to erode Israel’s air-defense capabilities by slamming them into the very batteries and infrastructure meant to take them down. Earlier this year, Hezbollah said it used an Ababil explosive drone to down Israel’s Sky Dew observation balloon, a component of its aerial defense.
On Monday evening, Hezbollah released a video showing some of its militants in a warehouse full of drones. The video shows drones on launchers and at the end displays a caption that reads: “Our capabilities are intact.”
Israel says it is working to tackle the threat
On Monday, on a visit to the training camp hit by the drone, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pledged to learn from the strike and said Israel was “concentrating significant efforts in developing solutions” to tackle the drone threat, without elaborating.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also visited the base and soldiers injured in the attack, noting that Israel had paid “a painful price.”
Kochav said there were ways to combat the drones that could be considered. Detection capabilities could be expanded to include acoustic radars to pick up on the sound of the drone’s engine or electro-optics, which could allow Israeli surveillance to better identify them. He said rockets, fighter jets and helicopters could be deployed for interception, and that electronic warfare could be used to overtake the drones and divert them.
“We were busy in recent years ... and unmanned (aerial vehicles) was not a top priority,” he said. “The results unfortunately are not good.”
 

 


Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike

Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike
Updated 53 min 34 sec ago
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Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike

Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike
  • Hezbollah said on Monday around midday that it had launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa before a further “big rocket salvo” in the early evening at the northern Israeli town of Safed
  • Since Israel on September 23 escalated its bombing against targets in Lebanon the war has killed at least 1,315 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely to be higher

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed to hit Hezbollah without mercy, a day after the Iran-backed Lebanese group’s deadliest strike on Israel since the start of the war in late September.
Hezbollah’s drone attack on an Israeli base killed four soldiers on Sunday, while volunteer rescuers said another 60 people were injured.
“We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon — including Beirut,” Netanyahu said on a visit to the base near Binyamina, south of Haifa.
Hezbollah said it launched the “squadron of attack drones” in response to Israeli attacks, including one last week that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
Since Israel on September 23 escalated its bombing against targets in Lebanon the war has killed at least 1,315 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely to be higher.
Prior to Netanyahu’s comments, new air strikes had already occurred against targets around Lebanon, including one in a northern Christian-majority village which killed at least 21 people on Monday, according to the health ministry.
Hezbollah said on Monday around midday that it had launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa before a further “big rocket salvo” in the early evening at the northern Israeli town of Safed.
Its fighters were also “engaged in violent clashes” in the Lebanese frontier village of Aita Al-Shaab, and were fighting elsewhere as well, it said.
Air raid sirens sounded across central Israel in the early evening, including in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv, the military said, after it earlier reported the interception of two drones approaching from Syria.

After almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli forces over the Lebanon border, Israel intensified its strikes against targets in Lebanon late last month before sending ground troops across the frontier.
Israel wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely.
Hezbollah says its strikes are in support of Palestinian militants Hamas who attacked Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the ongoing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The International Organization for Migration said last week it had verified 690,000 people displaced by the war in Lebanon.
Israel’s deadly air strike on the village of Aito in northern Lebanon on Monday marked a departure from the usual pattern, being located in a mostly Christian area and far from areas usually bombed.
Israel has focused its firepower mostly on Hezbollah strongholds in Shiite Muslim-majority areas, including in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
An AFP photographer in Aito said the strike levelled a residential building. Body parts were scattered in the rubble.
In the southern border town of Marjayoun, civil defense chief Anis Abla told AFP his rescue teams were exhausted.
“Our rescue missions are becoming more and more difficult, because the strikes are never-ending and target us,” he said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director, Nicolas Von Arx, appealed for the protection of ambulances and other health facilities and personnel.
“Attacks on health facilities are deeply worrying,” he said.
Israel faced new criticism over injuries and damage sustained by the UN peacekeeping force which has been deployed in Lebanon since 1978 after a previous Israeli invasion.
Netanyahu on Monday said Israel’s military “is doing its utmost to prevent such incidents” and repeated his request that the peacekeepers “get out of harm’s way.”
UNIFIL has refused.

Prime Minister Simon Harris of Ireland, which has troops in the UNIFIL mission, on Monday told Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a phone call that UNIFIL has “a clear mandate from the Security Council, and that it must be allowed to carry out its functions unimpeded,” Harris’s office said.
The Hamas attack on Israel last year which triggered war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, 42,289 people, the majority civilians. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
Since the Gaza war began hundreds of Palestinians have also been killed in the occupied West Bank. On Monday Palestinian officials said Israeli forces killed two more during a raid. Israel said it was “looking into the reports.”
In Gaza, despite escalating Israeli military operations in central and northern areas, the second round of a polio vaccination campaign for hundreds of thousands of children began on Monday.
With the war there, and in Lebanon, showing no sign of abating, fears of even wider regional conflict have seen Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas, engage in diplomatic efforts with allies and other powers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement in Oman, his latest stop on a regional diplomatic tour.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned of “a regional war that will be costly for everyone,” during a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday.
Israel is still weighing its response to an October 1 missile attack by Iran, the latest of two it has carried out against Israel this year.
 

 


‘Humanitarian disasters’ in Gaza must end, China tells Israeli authorities

‘Humanitarian disasters’ in Gaza must end, China tells Israeli authorities
Updated 8 min 44 sec ago
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‘Humanitarian disasters’ in Gaza must end, China tells Israeli authorities

‘Humanitarian disasters’ in Gaza must end, China tells Israeli authorities
  • In a phone conversation with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Wang also urged Israel to ensure the safety of UNIFIL personnel

BEIJING: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday told his Israeli counterpart that “humanitarian disasters” in Gaza should end, state media said.
“Humanitarian disasters in Gaza should not continue and ... countering violence with violence cannot truly address the legitimate concerns of all parties,” Wang told Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz during a phone call, the Xinhua news agency said.
“The Chinese side believes that renewed conflict and turmoil in the region serves the interests of no one,” Wang added.
Beijing also “hopes that all parties will act cautiously to avoid falling into a vicious circle amid tension between Israel and Iran,” Xinhua quoted Wang as saying.
He called for “immediate, complete and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages.”
The war in Gaza has killed, according to the Health Ministry in the territory, 42,289 people, the majority civilians.
The UN has described the figures as reliable.
Polio has re-emerged in besieged Gaza for the first time in 25 years as a result of the war, which has left most medical facilities and the sewage system in ruins.
A second round of a campaign to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza against polio began on Monday as Israeli forces continued deadly operations in parts of the Palestinian territory.
“Today is the first day of the (second round of the polio) campaign, and there is a good turnout because the vaccination convinces people,” said Abu Saleel, an employee of the Gaza Health Ministry, at a medical center in the central city of Deir Al-Balah.
Behind him, health workers administered the vaccine to dozens of children who had come with their families.
The UN agencies for health and children said they were aiming to provide follow-up doses to some 591,700 children under the age of 10 across Gaza in this round of vaccination.
This follows a first round of vaccination implemented from Sept. 1 to 12, hailed as a success by aid agencies.
The latest drive comes amid an escalation of Israeli military operations in central and northern areas of Gaza in recent days, which have already killed and wounded hundreds, according to the Gaza Civil Defense Agency.
The Israeli military has issued a string of evacuation orders there since it began operations on Oct. 6 aimed at preventing Hamas militants from regrouping.
UN investigators last week accused Israel of deliberately targeting health facilities and killing and torturing medical personnel in Gaza — prompting fierce criticism from Israel.
Gaza’s sewage system has also been largely destroyed, and human waste, which spreads the polio virus, often collects in the open near dense population areas.
More than 1,000 health workers were mobilized for the new vaccination campaign on Monday, according to the UN Agency for Supporting Palestinian Refugees, also known as UNRWA.
During the first campaign, aid agencies and Israeli authorities negotiated humanitarian pauses during periods when health centers were administering the doses to children.
But on Monday, it was unclear whether such an initiative was in place for the second round of vaccinations.
COGAT, the Israeli military body supervising civilian affairs in Palestinian territories, confirmed that the second round had begun on Monday but did not specify whether a humanitarian pause was planned.

 


Bus carrying university students crashes, killing 12 in Egypt’s northeast

A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people.
A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people.
Updated 14 October 2024
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Bus carrying university students crashes, killing 12 in Egypt’s northeast

A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people.
  • Students from the Suez-based Galala University were on board, returning home using the Ain Sokhna highway, when the accident happened

CAIRO: A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people and injuring 33 others, the health ministry said Monday night.
Students from the Suez-based Galala University were on board, returning home using the Ain Sokhna highway, when the accident happened. The ministry didn’t reveal what caused the crash.
The statement said 28 ambulances rushed to the site and transported the injured to the Suez Medical Complex, but didn’t disclose their condition.
Deadly traffic accidents claim thousands of lives every year in Egypt, which has a poor transportation safety record. Speeding, bad roads, and poor enforcement of traffic laws mostly cause the collisions.