Geneva —
The World Health Organization on Tuesday launched a polio eradication campaign in central Gaza and was unable to vaccinate tens of thousands of children, despite an Israeli attack on a designated protected area hours earlier. announced.
A humanitarian pause in the year-long Gaza war was scheduled to begin early Monday to reach hundreds of thousands of children as part of an agreement between the Israeli military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
But hours earlier, the UN Humanitarian Office announced that Israeli forces had stormed a tent near Al-Aqsa hospital in the area, where four people were burned to death.
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said up to 22 people were killed in overnight attacks on a school in the central Gaza city of Nuseirat that had been planned as a vaccination site between Sunday and Monday.
More than 92,000 children in the central region were vaccinated on Monday, about half of those targeted for polio vaccination, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told a news conference in Geneva.
“What we have received from our colleagues is that yesterday’s vaccinations were carried out without any major problems, and we hope that the same will continue in the future,” he said.
Other humanitarian agencies have previously expressed concerns about the viability of polio eradication operations in northern Gaza, where Israel continues its offensive.
Last month, aid groups administered the first vaccination to an infant who was left paralyzed by type 2 poliovirus in August, the first such case in the region in 25 years.
