EU calls for humanitarian pause in Gaza for polio vaccination
The European Union has called for humanitarian pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to enable a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.
“An epidemic among a population weakened by 10 months of fighting, displacement, deprivation and lack of health services must be avoided,” the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
For 25 years, Gaza has been polio-free, a joint EU statement said, adding that “it is alarming that poliovirus was detected and that the first case was confirmed there again in July affecting children.”
The EU echoed calls by the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) for an immediate humanitarian pause to allow health officials to vaccinate children.
The 27 EU countries also welcomed the delivery of more than 1.2 million polio vaccines and Israel’s cooperation in getting the vaccines to Gaza.
In collaboration with the WHO and the UN children’s agency UNICEF, two rounds of the campaign are expected to take place in Gaza in the coming weeks, providing two doses of the new oral polio vaccine type 2 to more than 640,000 children under the age of 10.Hostage relatives breach border to Gaza Strip
Relatives of some of the Israeli hostages taken to Gaza in the October 7 attacks have broken through a border fence into the Palestinian territory to stage a protest.
Dozens of people gathered to call out to their loved ones on loudspeakers, hoping they would be heard.
The demonstrators were seen carrying signs with pictures of the hostages.
The mother of an abducted soldier was said to have addressed her daughter, saying, “I’m sorry that we haven’t managed yet, but I promise you that you will come back.”
More than 100 hostages remain in the hands of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, nearly 11 months after the attacks on southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people died, most of them civilians. It is unclear exactly how many of them are still alive, but a recent Israeli estimate said a third are likely to have died.
Relatives of the remaining hostages have repeatedly demanded a cease-fire agreement with Hamas with the hope that this will also yield the release of the captives. Hostage relatives claim the Israeli government has not done enough to secure any such deal.
