Israel agrees to pause fighting for polio vaccinations in Gaza

The World Health Organization on Thursday said it had reached an agreement with Israel to observe humanitarian pauses for three days in central Gaza. The initial pauses in fighting will begin Sunday and will last from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza Rik Peeperkorn told the UN during a press conference. Additional three-day pauses will follow in the southern Khan Younis region and the northern Gaza City region, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

The United Nations Children’s Fund earlier this week delivered 1.2 million doses of polio vaccines to Gaza. Health officials are targeting 640,000 children under age 10 who will receive two rounds of oral polio vaccine, with the second dose given four weeks after the first.

Why are officials prioritizing vaccines now? UN officials earlier this month confirmed that a 10-month-old boy in Gaza had contracted the first case of polio in the region in 25 years. The unvaccinated child developed paralysis in his lower left leg and is currently in stable condition, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X. Officials in June also discovered the highly infectious virus in sewer samples in the strip.

Polio has been largely eradicated around the world due to vaccination drives, but it remains a hazard in some regions. There are no treatments or cures for the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Will Hamas comply with the pauses? The terrorist group is willing to cooperate with international organizations to permit the vaccination drive, Hamas’ political representative Basem Naim said. The pauses are not a cease-fire and international leaders are still mediating between Israel and Hamas to bring about a more permanent end to fighting.

Dig deeper: Read Emma Freire’s report in WORLD Magazine on the public debate over the COVID-19 vaccine.