WHO warns of falling polio vaccination rates in Palestinian enclave
▲ A Palestinian trains in a half-destroyed gym that was reopened a few days ago in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.Afp Photo
Reuters, Ap, Europa Press, Sputnik and Xinhua
The newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, August 8, 2024, p. 26
Cairo. Ten months into Israel’s offensive against the Gaza Strip, in which 39,670 Palestinians have been killed, Tel Aviv forces yesterday ordered the evacuation of areas in the north of the coastal enclave, which were the first to be attacked at the start of the war with Hamas, after the militants launched a new volley of rockets against Israel.
Army spokesman Avichay Adraee posted the evacuation orders in text messages and on social media for several districts of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, two towns now largely demolished by Israeli tanks since the start of the invasion.
The Israeli military said its troops attacked weapons manufacturing facilities in the crowded Deir Balah district in central Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fighting have sought refuge.
Elsewhere in the centre, Israeli tanks shelled Nuseirat and Bureij, two of the eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Tel Aviv claims that Hamas militants use civilian infrastructure as cover and to hide operating posts and weapons depots, something Hamas has always denied.
The militants say they continue to ambush Israeli troops and armored vehicles, and are still able to fire limited rocket salvos into Israel.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) reiterated that no place is safe in the area due to the constant bombings. Amid ongoing military operations, families are forced to move with nowhere to gopublished in X.
Hamza Bishtawi, a member of the general command of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told the Russian news agency Sputnik that the appointment of Yahya Sinwar as the new head of the Hamas political bureau will not influence the course of negotiations with Israel on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, stressing that the new leader of the resistance movement has been participating in these talks for a long time.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that The election of Yahya Sinwar as Hamas leader should send a clear message to the world that the Palestinian issue is now completely controlled by Iran and Hamas.while calling on the international community to support Israel in its struggle against the Iranian axis and extremist Islamismas Tel Aviv braces for a retaliatory strike by the Islamic Republic for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh last week in Tehran.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) insisted that the dangerous Falling polio vaccination rates in Gaza raise fears of a spread of the disease in the enclave.
He said that vaccination coverage before the outbreak of the current conflict was around 99 percent, but that it has now dropped to 86 percent. There are areas where children are not vaccinated, even though traces of the virus were detected in wastewater samples at the end of July.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the WHO, called for a halt to hostilities for several days in order to deliver one million doses of polio vaccine.