RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.
Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.
According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.
“Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio,” the health ministry said. “After conducting the necessary tests in the Jordanian capital, Amman, the infection was confirmed.”
The case emerged shortly after Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children.
Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.
The UN health and children’s agencies said they had made detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory and could start this month.
But that would require pauses in the 10-month old war between Israel and Hamas, they said.
“Preventing and containing the spread of polio will take a massive, coordinated and urgent effort,” Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.
“I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign.”
The World Health Organization and UN children’s fund UNICEF said they were planning two seven-day vaccination drives across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).
Last month, it was announced that type 2 poliovirus had been detected in samples collected in Gaza on June 23.
“These pauses in fighting would allow children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination,” the agencies said in a statement said.
After 25 years without polio, its re-emergence in the Gaza Strip would threaten neighboring countries, it added.
“A ceasefire is the only way to ensure public health security in the Gaza Strip and the region.”
During each round of the campaign, the health ministry in Gaza, alongside UN agencies, would provide “two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age.”
More than 1.6 million doses of nOPV2 were expected to transit through Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport “by the end of August,” the statement added.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
On Thursday, the toll from Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza passed 40,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.
Gaza records first polio case in 25 years as UN urges vaccinations
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Gaza records first polio case in 25 years as UN urges vaccinations
- Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said
- “Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio,” the health ministry said
Negotiators resume talks on final details of Gaza ceasefire deal
Officials from mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US as well as Israel and Hamas said on Tuesday that an agreement for a truce in the besieged Palestinian enclave and the release of hostages was closer than ever.
But a senior Hamas official told Reuters late on Tuesday that the Palestinian group had not yet delivered its response because it was still waiting for Israel to submit maps showing how its forces would withdraw from Gaza.
During months of on-off talks to achieve a truce in the devastating 15-month-old war, both sides have previously said they were close to a ceasefire only to hit last-minute obstacles. The broad outlines of the current deal have been in place since mid-2024.
If successful, the planned phased ceasefire could halt fighting that has decimated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, displaced most of the enclave’s pre-war population of 2.3 million and is still killing dozens of people a day.
That in turn could ease tensions across the wider Middle East, where the war has fueled conflict in the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and raised fears of all-out war between Israel and Iran.
Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed across its borders on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 46,700 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave.
Palestinians were once again hoping the latest talks would deliver some relief from Israeli air strikes, and ease a deep humanitarian crisis.
“We are waiting for the ceasefire and the truce. May God complete it for us in goodness, bless us with peace, and allow us to return to our homes,” said Amal Saleh, 54, a Gazan displaced by the war.
“Even if the schools are bombed, destroyed, and ruined, we just want to know that we are finally living in peace.”
Under the plan, Israel would recover around 100 remaining hostages and bodies from among those captured in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel that precipitated the war. In return it would free Palestinian detainees.
The latest draft is complicated and sensitive. Under its terms, the first steps would feature a six-week initial ceasefire.
The plan also includes a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from central Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to the north of the enclave.
The deal would also require Hamas to release 33 Israeli hostages along with other steps.
The draft stipulates negotiations over a second phase of the agreement to begin by the 16th day of phase one. Phase two includes the release of all remaining hostages, a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.
Even if the warring sides agree to the deal on the table, that agreement still needs further negotiation before there is a final ceasefire and the release of all the hostages
If it all goes smoothly, the Palestinians, Arab states and Israel still need to agree on a vision for post-war Gaza, a massive task involving security guarantees for Israel and billions of dollars in investment for rebuilding.
One unanswered question is who will run Gaza after the war.
Israel has rejected any involvement by Hamas, which ran Gaza before the war, but it has been almost equally opposed to rule by the Palestinian Authority, the body set up under the Oslo interim peace accords three decades ago that has limited governing power in the West Bank.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said on Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority must be the sole governing power in Gaza after the war.
Israeli attacks
Despite the efforts to reach a ceasefire, the Israeli military, the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency and the air force attacked about 50 targets throughout Gaza over the last 24 hours, Shin Bet and the military said in a statement on Wednesday.
Israeli strikes killed at least 13 Palestinians across the enclave. Those included seven people who were in a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City, and six others killed in separate airstrikes on houses in Deir Al-Balah, Bureij camp and Rafah, medics said.
Families of hostages in Israel were caught between hope and despair.
“We can’t miss this moment. This is the last moment; we can save them,” said Hadas Calderon, whose husband Ofer and children Sahar and Erez were abducted.
Israel says 98 hostages are being held in Gaza, about half of whom are believed to be alive. They include Israelis and non-Israelis. Of the total, 94 were seized in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and four have been held in Gaza since 2014.
Israel struck Gaza ‘humanitarian zone’ almost 100 times, BBC analysis finds
- Naval, aerial attacks hit stretch of land housing more than 1m Palestinians
- ‘Heavy fire is recurrent in this area despite Israel’s unilateral ‘humanitarian designation,’ says aid official
LONDON: The Israeli military hit its own designated “humanitarian zone” in Gaza 97 times since May, analysis by the BBC has shown.
Israel established the area in October 2023, and told Palestinians in Gaza to relocate there for safety.
It was later expanded to include the urban centers of Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah.
Despite intending to “keep innocent civilians out of harms way,” Israeli forces struck buildings within the zone 97 times since May 2024, according to BBC Verify.
The area covers a significant and densely populated strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea.
More than 1 million people — many living in tents — are believed to be living inside the Israeli-imposed zone, humanitarian groups have said.
Since the new year, Israel has carried out at least 22 strikes in the area.
The 97 strikes since last May have killed 550 Palestinians.
Israeli military officials have acknowledged 28 of the attacks, and the BBC said it could not confirm that all 97 are the result of Israeli operations.
In a statement to the BBC, the Israeli military said that it was targeting Hamas fighters in the “humanitarian zone.”
It accused Hamas of international law violations, using civilians as human shields and launching rockets from the zone.
Gavin Kelleher, Gaza access manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the BBC that Israel had conducted “near daily” strikes inside the zone, using naval vessels and drones.
“Heavy fire is recurrent in this area despite its (Israel’s) unilateral ‘humanitarian’ designation,” he added.
“The Israeli military appears keen to maintain the illusion of a ‘humanitarian zone’ that remains a certain size, yet that zone can be subject to ‘evacuation orders’ at any time and be targeted.”
One resident in the zone, Khaled Abdel Rahman, told the BBC that fear was “dominating the lives” of Palestinians in the area.
“We were displaced to Khan Younis because it was designated as a safe zone, but in fact we find nothing here but insecurity,” he said.
Due to Israel’s ban on foreign media operating in Gaza, BBC Verify used Palestinian and Israeli social media channels to document the strikes.
Researchers analyzed more than 300 photos and videos posted from the “humanitarian zone” since May.
The deadliest strike in the area came on July 13, and killed more than 90 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry, medics and first responders said.
Nine strikes hit within 100 meters of buildings belonging to Al-Aqsa Hospital complex in Deir Al-Balah.
Four struck within 150 meters of Khan Younis’ Nasser Medical Complex.
The Israeli military told the BBC that the attacks were launched “against terrorists and terror infrastructures including rocket launchers, weapons warehouse and manufacturing sites, operational apartments, underground infrastructure, operational headquarters and terrorist hideouts.”
Turkish prosecutors target the Istanbul Bar Association
ISTANBUL: Turkish prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the Istanbul Bar Association for “terrorist propaganda” over its calls for a probe into journalist deaths in Syria, the country’s main lawyers association has said.
“The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office has begun legal action to remove Istanbul Bar Association president Ibrahim Kaboglu and his executive board,” Turkish Bar Association head Erinc Sagkan wrote on X late Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed several weeks after the Istanbul Bar Association demanded an investigation into the deaths of two journalists from Turkiye’s Kurdish-majority southeast who were killed in northern Syria.
Nazim Dastan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin, died on December 19 when their car was hit by what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was a “Turkish drone strike” during clashes between an Ankara-backed militia and the SDF, a US-backed group of mainly Kurdish fighters.
Turkiye sees the SDF as a terror group tied to the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.
The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets Rojnews and the Anha news agency, and the strike denounced by the Turkish Journalists’ Union.
The Turkish military insists it never targets civilians but only terror groups.
At the time, the Istanbul Bar Association issued a statement saying “targeting members of the press in conflict zones is a violation of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention.” It demanded “a proper investigation be conducted into the murder of two of our citizens.”
Prosecutors immediately opened an inquiry into allegations of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and “publicly spreading false information” on grounds the two journalists had ties to the PKK.
The Istanbul Bar Association denounced the lawsuit as having “no legal basis” and said its executive council was “fulfilling its duties and responsibilities in line with the Constitution, democracy and the law.”
Turkish Bar Association head Sagkan said: “Although the methods may change, the only thing that has remained constant for the past half century is the effort by the government’s supporters to pressurise and stifle those they see as opponents.”
UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban
OSLO: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will continue to provide aid to people in the Palestinian territories despite an Israeli ban due to be implemented by the end of January, its director said Wednesday.
“We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo. “UNRWA’s local staff will remain and continue to provide emergency assistance and where possible, education and primary health care,” he said.
Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday urged all countries to “take their hands off” Syria and said Turkiye had the capacity and ability to crush all terrorist organizations in the country, including Kurdish militia and Islamic State.
Speaking in parliament, Erdogan said the Kurdish YPG militia was the biggest problem in Syria now after the ousting of former President Bashar Assad, and added that the group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms.
