UN says Gaza polio vaccination campaign complete/node/2578291/middle-east
UN says Gaza polio vaccination campaign complete
The UN said Wednesday its Gaza child polio vaccination drive was complete, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Palestinian territory. (Reuters/File)
The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed Tuesday, with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated
An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated”
Updated 06 November 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: The UN said Wednesday its Gaza child polio vaccination drive was complete, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Palestinian territory.
The World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF launched a second round of vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday after Israeli bombing halted an earlier attempt to do so.
“The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed yesterday (Tuesday), with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated with a second dose,” said a joint statement.
It “is a remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances the campaign was executed under.”
Israel’s military has pounded northern Gaza for weeks in a major offensive it says is aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.
An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to the poliovirus,” the UN organizations said.
The vaccination campaign had been a “success,” according to a statement Wednesday from COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that manages civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.
The drive began on September 1 with a successful first round, after the besieged territory confirmed its first polio case in 25 years.
Typically spread through sewage and contaminated water, poliovirus is highly infectious.
It can cause deformities and paralysis and is potentially fatal, mainly affecting children aged under five.
The vaccination campaign was managed primarily by UN agencies including the WHO, UNICEF and UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Last month Israel’s parliament adopted a law banning UNRWA’s activities on Israeli territory.
The aid agency remains “the largest primary health care provider in the Gaza Strip,” according to Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s senior emergency officer.
The WHO said Saturday four children were among six people wounded in a strike on a polio vaccination center in northern Gaza.
It was unclear who carried out the attack.
The UN agencies on Wednesday again called for a ceasefire.
“Humanitarian pauses... must be systematically applied beyond the polio emergency response efforts to other health and humanitarian interventions to respond to dire needs,” they said.
Syrians search for loved ones missing in Assad’s jails
Updated 10 sec ago
DAMASCUS: Syrian rescuers searched a jail synonymous with the worst atrocities of ousted president Bashar Assad’s rule, as people in the capital flocked to a central square Monday to celebrate their country’s freedom. Assad fled Syria as militants swept into the capital, bringing to a spectacular end on Sunday five decades of brutal rule by his clan over a country ravaged by one of the deadliest wars of the century. He oversaw a crackdown on a democracy movement that erupted in 2011, sparking a war that killed 500,000 people and forced half the country to flee their homes. At the core of the system of rule that Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centers used to eliminate dissent by jailing those suspected of stepping out of the ruling Baath party’s line. On Monday, rescuers from the Syrian White Helmets said they were searching for secret doors or basements in Saydnaya prison, looking for any detainees who might be trapped. “We are working with all our energy to reach a new hope, and we must be prepared for the worst,” the organization said in a statement. Aida Taha, aged 65, said she had been “roaming the streets like a madwoman” in search of her brother, who was arrested in 2012. She said she went to Saydnaya, where she believes some prisoners are still underground. “The prison has three or four underground floors,” Taha said. “They say that the doors won’t open because they don’t have the proper codes.” “We’ve been oppressed long enough, we want our children back,” she added. While Syria has been at war for 13 years, the government’s collapse ended up coming in a matter of days, with a lightning offensive launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS). Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, HTS is proscribed by Western governments as a terrorist group. While it remains to be seen how HTS operates now that Assad is gone, it has sought to moderate its image and to assure Syria’s many religious minorities that they need not fear. In central Damascus on Monday, despite all the uncertainties for the future, the joy was palpable. “It’s indescribable, we never thought this nightmare would end, we are reborn,” 49-year-old Rim Ramadan, a civil servant at the finance ministry, told AFP. “We were afraid for 55 years of speaking, even at home, we used to say the walls had ears,” Ramadan said, as people honked their car horns and rebels fired their guns into the air. “We feel like we’re living a dream,” she added. During the offensive launched on November 27, rebels wrested city after city from Assad’s control, opening the gates of prisons along the way and freeing thousands of people, many of them held on political charges. Social media groups were alight with Syrians sharing images of detainees reportedly brought out from the dungeons, in a collective effort to reunite families with their loved ones, some of whom had been missing for years. Others, like Fadwa Mahmoud, whose husband and son are missing, posted calls for help finding their missing relatives. “Where are you, Maher and Abdel Aziz, it’s time for me to hear your news, oh God, please come back, let my joy become complete,” wrote Mahmoud, herself a former detainee. US President Joe Biden said Assad should be “held accountable” as he called his downfall “a historic opportunity” for the people of Syria. “The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice,” he said. But he also cautioned that hard-line Islamist groups within the victorious rebel alliance would face scrutiny. “Some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and human right abuses,” Biden said. The United States has taken note of recent statements by the rebels suggesting they were adopting a more moderate posture, but Biden said: “We will assess not just their words, but their actions.” Amnesty International also called for perpetrators of rights violations to face justice, with its chief Agnes Callamard urging the forces that ousted Assad to “break free from the violence of the past.” “Any political transition must ensure accountability for perpetrators of serious violations and guarantee that those responsible are held to account,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said on Monday. How Assad might face justice remains unclear, especially after Russia refused on Monday to confirm reports by Russian news agencies that he had fled to Moscow. The Syrian embassy in Moscow raised the flag of the opposition, and the Kremlin said it would discuss the status of its bases in Syria with the new authorities. Russia played an instrumental role in keeping Assad in power, directly intervening in the war starting in 2015 and providing air cover to the army on the ground as it sought to crush the rebellion. Iran, another key ally of Assad, said it expected its “friendly” ties with Syria to continue, with its foreign minister saying the ousted president “never asked” for Tehran’s help against the militant offensive. Turkiye, historically a backer of the opposition, called for an “inclusive” new government in Syria, as the sheer unpredictability of the situation began to settle in. “It is not just Assad’s regime falling, it is also the question of what comes in its place?” said Aron Lund, a specialist at the Century International think tank. While Syria’s war began with a crackdown on grassroots democracy protests, it morphed over time and drew in jihadists and foreign powers backing opposing sides. Israel, which borders Syria, sent troops into a buffer zone after Assad’s fall, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a “limited and temporary step.” Saar also said his country had struck “chemical weapons” in Syria, “in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists.” In northern Syria, a Turkish drone strike on a Kurdish-held area killed 11 civilians, six of them children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
UK to decide ‘quickly’ on terror status of Syrian opposition forces
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, but broke ties with the group in 2016
Updated 09 December 2024
AFP
LONDON: The UK will decide “quickly” whether to remove the Islamist group HTS, which spearheaded the offensive to oust Syrian president Bashar Assad, from its list of terrorist organizations, a senior minister said on Monday.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, but broke ties with the group in 2016. The UK and United States still classify it as a terror group.
Pat McFadden, whose ministerial role includes responsibility for UK national security, on Monday said that the government was considering removing the group from the blacklist.
“If the situation stabilizes, there’ll be a decision to make about how to deal with whatever new regime is in place there,” he told BBC Radio 4.
“I think it should be a relatively swift decision so it’s something that will have to be considered quite quickly, given the speed of the situation on the ground.”
McFadden added that Syrian opposition forces leader Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani was “saying some of the right things about the protection of minorities, about respecting people’s rights. So we’ll look at that in the days to come.”
He added to Sky News that “it will partly depend on... how that group behaves now.”
The ousted president’s wife, Asma Assad, was born and raised in the UK, but McFadden said nobody had yet contacted the government on her behalf.
“We’ve certainly had no contact or no request for Mr.Assad’s wife to come to the UK,” he told the BBC.
Asma Assad and other individuals and entities linked to her husband have been sanctioned by the US since 2020, with then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo calling her “one of Syria’s most notorious war profiteers.”
Bashar Assad, in power since 2000, was overthrown on Sunday following a swift campaign by HTS and its allies.
The government fell more than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil war, which has drawn in foreign powers, jihadists and claimed more than half a million lives.
Bashar Assad and his family are in Moscow, according to Russian news agencies.
UAE calls for unity of Syria, integrity of national state
UAE calls on Syrian parties to prioritise wisdom during critical juncture in country's history, foreign ministry official says
Updated 09 December 2024
Arab News
RIYADH: The United Arab Emirates said on Monday it is closely monitoring the ongoing developments in Syria.
“The UAE foreign ministry calls on all Syrian parties to prioritize wisdom during this critical juncture in Syria’s history,” foreign ministry official Afra Al-Hameli said on X.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on all Syrian parties to prioritize wisdom during this critical juncture in Syria’s history, in a manner that fulfills the aspirations and ambitions of all segments of the Syrian population.
The UAE is closely monitoring the ongoing developments in Syria, and reiterates its commitment to the unity and integrity of the Syrian state, as well as to ensuring security and stability for the brotherly Syrian people, the statement added.
Furthermore, the Ministry stressed the need to safeguard the Syrian national state and its institutions, and to prevent any descent into chaos and instability.
Turkish military helicopters collide in midair, killing 6 military personnel
Updated 09 December 2024
AP
ANKARA: Two Turkish military helicopters collided in midair on Monday, causing one of them to crash and killing six military personnel on board, officials said. The second helicopter landed safely.
Five of the victims died at the site of the accident while a sixth died of his injuries at a hospital, the defense ministry said.
The crash occurred in the southwestern province of Isparta during regular training flights, according to the region’s governor, Abdullah Erin.
A brigadier general who was in charge of the military aviation school was among the victims, he said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the two helicopters to come into contact. Erin said an investigation has been launched.
The private DHA news agency said the UH-1 utility helicopter crashed into a field and split in two. The second helicopter landed some 400 meters (yards) away.
Trump’s Middle East envoy warns of consequences if Gaza hostages not released soon
Updated 09 December 2024
Reuters
ABU DHABI: Donald Trump's Middle East envoy warned on Monday during a visit to the region it would "not be a pretty day" if the hostages held in Gaza were not released before the U.S. President-elect's inauguration.
Steve Witkoff, who will formally take up the position when Trump's administration starts, said he hoped and prayed there would be ceasefire in Gaza between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
"You heard what the president said, they better be released," he said, referring to Trump.
"Listen to what the president has got to say. It's not a pretty day if they're not released," Witkoff added, in response to Reuters questions on the sidelines of a bitcoin conference in UAE capital Abu Dhabi.
President-elect Trump said on social media last week there would be
"hell to pay"
if the hostages were not released before his inauguration.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250, including Israeli-American dual nationals, during their Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 100 hostages have been freed through negotiations or Israeli military rescue operations. Of the 101 still held in Gaza, roughly half are believed to be alive.
More than 44,700 people have been killed in the assault that Israel launched on Gaza in response, authorities in the Hamas-run territory say. Thousands of others are feared dead under the rubble.
Witkoff earlier spoke to an audience at the Bitcoin conference where those attending paid as much as $9,999 to access special sessions, which are closed to media.
