WHO hails success of polio first phase vaccination campaign in Gaza

WHO hails success of polio first phase vaccination campaign in Gaza
A health worker marks the finger of a child who received a vaccination for polio in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 4, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 05 September 2024
Follow

WHO hails success of polio first phase vaccination campaign in Gaza

WHO hails success of polio first phase vaccination campaign in Gaza
  • The campaign aims to fully vaccinate more than 640,000 children in the besieged territory, devastated by almost 11 months of war

GENEVA: The first phase of a large-scale polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has concluded successfully, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, providing nearly 200,000 children in the center of the Palestinian territory with their initial dose.
With Gaza lying in ruins and the majority of its 2.4 million residents forced to flee their homes due to Israel’s military assault — often taking refuge in cramped and unsanitary conditions — disease has spread.
After the first confirmed polio case in 25 years, a massive vaccination effort began on Sunday, aided by localized “humanitarian pauses” in fighting.
The campaign aims to fully vaccinate more than 640,000 children in the besieged territory, devastated by almost 11 months of war.
During the first phase of the campaign, conducted between September 1 and 3 in central Gaza, more than 187,000 children under the age of 10 were reached, the WHO said in a statement.
“We are grateful for the dedication of all the families, health workers and vaccinators who made this part of the campaign a success despite the dire conditions in the Gaza Strip,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter.
“We ask for the humanitarian pauses to continue to be respected. We continue to call for a ceasefire.”
The WHO had estimated that vaccines would be needed for nearly 157,000 children below the age of 10 in central Gaza, but acknowledged that that was an underestimate.
This it said was “due to population movement toward central Gaza, and expanded coverage in areas outside the humanitarian pause zone.”
More than 500 teams, consisting of nearly 2,200 health and community outreach workers, took part in the campaign in central Gaza, with vaccinations provided at 143 fixed sites across the area.
In addition, mobile teams visited tents and hard-to-reach areas, including those outside the agreed humanitarian pause zone.
While the large-scale campaign in central Gaza is over, the WHO said that vaccinations would continue at four large health facilities there over the next few days “to ensure no child is missed in the area.”
The main focus is meanwhile set to move to southern Gaza, where an estimated 340,000 children over the next four days will receive their first dose.
And finally, the campaign will be concentrated in northern Gaza between September 9 and 11, targeting around 150,000 children, the WHO said.
A fresh campaign to provide a needed second dose is due to begin in about four weeks time.
The WHO has stressed that it is vital to reach at least 90 percent coverage to avoid the spread of the disease both within Gaza’s borders and beyond.
“We want to ensure... there will be no other Gaza children who actually will suffer from polio,” Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the Palestinian territories, told reporters on Wednesday.
“But we also want to make sure that we prevent the spread from polio to neighboring countries.”
The October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including hostages killed in captivity, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas since October 7 has killed at least 40,861 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.


Force alone will not lead to Israel’s security, France says

An Israeli tank operates at a location given as Southern Lebanon in this image released on October 6, 2024. (Reuters)
An Israeli tank operates at a location given as Southern Lebanon in this image released on October 6, 2024. (Reuters)
Updated 14 sec ago
Follow

Force alone will not lead to Israel’s security, France says

An Israeli tank operates at a location given as Southern Lebanon in this image released on October 6, 2024. (Reuters)
  • “Force alone cannot guarantee the security of Israel, your security. Military success cannot be a substitute for a political perspective,” Barrot said

JERUSALEM: Israel’s security cannot be guaranteed with military force alone and will require a diplomatic solution, France’s foreign minister said on Monday, and Paris would continue efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Speaking at the end of a four-day tour of the Middle East, Jean-Noel Barrot was in Israel on Monday to mark a year since Hamas militants crossed into Israel killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage back to Gaza.
The assault triggered an Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry. The war has spread conflict across the region with Israel stepping up military operations over its northern border in Lebanon against Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
“Force alone cannot guarantee the security of Israel, your security. Military success cannot be a substitute for a political perspective,” Barrot told a news conference in Jerusalem.
“To bring the hostages home to their loved ones, to allow the displaced to return home in the north (of Israel), after a year of war, the time for diplomacy has come.”
Barrot’s arrival in Israel, where about 180,000 French citizens live, came at a tricky time in Franco-Israeli relations after President Emmanuel Macron was firmly rebuffed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the weekend.
Macron had called for a de facto arms embargo on Israel and, in a veiled attack on the US, said countries that both supplied weapons and called for a ceasefire where they were being used in conflict were being incoherent. French arms supplies to Israel are minimal.
Barrot reiterated that it was odd to call for a ceasefire while giving offensive weapons. He said that France, as a staunch defender of Israel’s security, felt it was vital to be frank about the ongoing suffering of civilians in Gaza, but also the military operation now in southern Lebanon.
France worked with the United States in trying to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon at the end of September. Diplomatic sources had at the time believed this had secured a temporary truce, a day before Israel heavily bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
“We have a responsibility to act today to avoid Lebanon finding itself in a short horizon in a dramatic situation like Syria found itself a few years ago,” Barrot said.
Ceasefire proposals put forward together with Washington remain on the table, he said.


Israel can’t confirm death of Hezbollah’s Safieddine, spokesperson says

Hezbollah source said contact with Hashem Safieddine had been lost following Israeli strikes this week. (AFP)
Hezbollah source said contact with Hashem Safieddine had been lost following Israeli strikes this week. (AFP)
Updated 43 min 3 sec ago
Follow

Israel can’t confirm death of Hezbollah’s Safieddine, spokesperson says

Hezbollah source said contact with Hashem Safieddine had been lost following Israeli strikes this week. (AFP)
  • Asked if Israel could confirm the death of Hashem Safieddine, spokesperson David Mencer said: “We don’t have that confirmation yet”

JERUSALEM: Israel cannot confirm whether the potential successor to the slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, a government spokesperson said on Monday, following reports that he was targeted in an Israeli air strike last week.
Asked if Israel could confirm the death of Hashem Safieddine, spokesperson David Mencer told an online briefing: “We don’t have that confirmation yet. When it is confirmed, as and when, it will be on the IDF (Israeli military) website.”
A Hezbollah official told Reuters on Sunday that Israel was obstructing search and rescue efforts in an area where Safieddine is thought to have been when Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday.
Israel has killed much of Hezbollah’s military command and senior leadership in nearly a year of fighting that began when Hezbollah opened a front in solidarity with Palestinians the day after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.


Commander of Iran’s Quds Force is ‘in good health’, force’s deputy commander says

Commander of Iran’s Quds Force is ‘in good health’, force’s deputy commander says
Updated 07 October 2024
Follow

Commander of Iran’s Quds Force is ‘in good health’, force’s deputy commander says

Commander of Iran’s Quds Force is ‘in good health’, force’s deputy commander says
  • Qaani had traveled to Lebanon after the killing of Nasrallah

DAMASCUS: The top commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, is in “good health,” the force’s deputy commander Iraj Masjedi said on Monday, after two Iranian security sources told Reuters he had been out of contact since strikes on Beirut last week.
“He is in good health and is carrying out his activities. Some ask us to issue a statement... there is no need for this,” Masjedi was quoted as saying by Iranian state media in reference to Qaani.
The Iranian Students’ News Agency reported that a message from Qaani was conveyed to a conference in solidarity with Palestinian children held on Monday in Tehran, adding that the commander could not attend “due to his being in another important meeting.”
One of the security officials told Reuters that Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, during a strike last week that was reported to have targeted senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine. The official said he was not meeting Safieddine.
Israel has been hitting multiple targets in Dahiyeh as it pursues a campaign against Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Tehran named Qaani the head of the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ overseas military-intelligence service after the United States assassinated his powerful predecessor Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
The Quds Force heavily influences its allied armed groups across the Middle East.

 


HRW: Israeli strikes endanger civilians on Lebanon-Syria border

HRW: Israeli strikes endanger civilians on Lebanon-Syria border
Updated 07 October 2024
Follow

HRW: Israeli strikes endanger civilians on Lebanon-Syria border

HRW: Israeli strikes endanger civilians on Lebanon-Syria border
  • Human Rights Watch said the strikes were "impeding civilians trying to flee and disrupting humanitarian operations"

Beirut, Lebanon: Human Rights Watch on Monday said Israeli strikes near the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing were putting civilians at "grave risk" as they prevented them from fleeing and hampered humanitarian operations.
The Israeli military said Friday its fighter jets struck Hezbollah positions near the Masnaa border crossing in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley.
Syrian transport ministry official Sleiman Khalil told AFP on Monday that the road was still "completely cut off to vehicle traffic", but people could still cross on foot.
Human Rights Watch said the strikes were "impeding civilians trying to flee and disrupting humanitarian operations", adding "the situation places civilians at grave risk."
"An Israeli attack on a legitimate military target may still be unlawful if it can be expected to cause immediate civilian harm disproportionate to the anticipated military gain," it said in a statement.
If Hezbollah used the crossing to transfer weapons, the Iran-backed group too "may be failing to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control", HRW added.
The Israeli military said it "struck an underground tunnel" crossing the border that "enables the transfer and storage of large quantities of weapons underground".
"The tunnel's operations were led by the 4400 Unit, the unit responsible for the transportation of weapons from Iran and its proxies to Hezbollah in Lebanon," the military added.
On Friday, an AFP photographer saw people carrying bags and children as they walked around a crater where a strike had hit.
The head of the United Nations refugee agency Filippo Grandi warned Sunday that the bombing of the road "has de facto blocked many people from seeking safety in Syria".
Lebanese authorities said Friday that more than 370,000 people had crossed from Lebanon into Syria since September 23, most of them Syrian nationals.
More than 774,000 Syrian refugees were registered with the UN in Lebanon before the latest escalation, though the tiny country said that it hosted some two million of them -- the world's highest ratio of refugees per capita.
HRW's Lama Fakih said that "by making a border crossing inaccessible at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing fighting and many others are in need of aid, the Israeli military threatens considerable civilian harm."
Even if the crossing were used for military purposes, "Israel would need to take into account the expected civilian harm compared to the anticipated military gain", she added in the statement.


Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian boy in West Bank confrontations, health ministry says

Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian boy in West Bank confrontations, health ministry says
Updated 07 October 2024
Follow

Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian boy in West Bank confrontations, health ministry says

Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian boy in West Bank confrontations, health ministry says
  • Video from the area of Qalandia showed youths blocking a road with burning tires, with Israeli army vehicles and ambulances at the scene
  • Violence has surged across the West Bank since last October

QALANDIA, West Bank: A 12-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in confrontations between youths and Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The Israeli military said it was checking the report.
Video from the area of Qalandia showed youths blocking a road with burning tires, with Israeli army vehicles and ambulances at the scene.
Monday marked the first anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip and set off the worst bloodletting in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Violence has surged across the West Bank since last October. Hundreds of Palestinians — including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and civilian bystanders — have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.
Dozens of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian street attacks over the past year.
Israel said it was on high alert for attacks on Monday. Movement in the West Bank was further restricted as many checkpoints shut down, residents said and some Palestinians with entry permits received notices on their mobile phones saying they will not be allowed into Israel.