6 hostage bodies recovered, including an Israeli-American // President Biden declares Hamas will pay for its crimes
▲ The WHO’s goal is to immunize 640,000 children under 10 years of age to prevent the polio outbreak from spreading or spreading beyond the country’s borders. Image by Yan Junis.Photo Ap
Ap, Afp, Europa Press and Sputnik
The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, September 1, 2024, p. 18
Jerusalem. The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday began a polio vaccination campaign in the central Gaza Strip, in the town of Khan Yunis. The vaccination team is expected to extend to the south and north of the enclave, even though Israel has announced that there will be no ceasefire for this purpose.
Children in Gaza have begun to be vaccinated, the Health Ministry said, a day before the date set for the large-scale vaccination campaign and the pause limited in the fighting, agreed by Israel and the WHO, which begins today.
Journalists from the American news agency AP saw at least 10 minors receiving the dose of the anti-polio drug yesterday at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis.
The WHO announced on Thursday that Israel accepted humanitarian pauses eight hours a day – between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. – in each of the three sectors of the territory, for three days, during which it is expected to inoculate 640 thousand children up to 10 years old.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said last night that reports of a ceasefire in Gaza to distribute and administer polio vaccines to residents are false, it reported. The Jerusalem Post.
Israel will set up a humanitarian corridor to allow the entry of health workers, as well as designate certain areas where vaccines will be administered safely, the Prime Minister’s Office added.
Confusion in the schedule
According to the Israeli civil administration, the campaign will take place in three locations: in central Gaza, between today and September 3; in the south, from September 4 to 6; and in the north, from September 7 to 9, between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Meanwhile, Majdi Duhair, a representative of the Ministry of Health in Gaza and head of the technical committee for the campaign, explained that vaccination will actually begin today in central Gaza, then continue in the south of the enclave from 5 to 9 September, and finally complete the initiative between 9 and 12 September in Gaza City and the north of the strip. In all cases, the planned 8-hour schedule begins at 7:30 a.m.
The vaccination campaign comes after the first case of polio in 25 years was discovered in Gaza a week ago, in a 10-month-old boy who was partially paralyzed by a mutant strain of the virus because he was not vaccinated due to the war.
On Friday, the WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, warned at a press conference from Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, that At least 90 percent coverage is needed during each round to stop the polio outbreak (…) and prevent its international spread.
Meanwhile, Israeli attacks continued with great intensity in other areas of the Gaza Strip, such as the refugee camps of Nuseirat and Maghazi, where at least 16 civilians were killed over the weekend, Gazan authorities reported.
The reoccupied West Bank, meanwhile, endured a fourth day of Israeli offensive. The army claimed to have eliminated 14 terrorists in 24 hours in Jenin, a historic bastion of Palestinian resistance, where refugee families began to flee yesterday in Palestinian camps.
For its part, the United Nations (UN) denounced that Netanyahu’s army is exercising excessive use illegal of the force during the operation deployed on the reoccupied territories of the West Bank.
The ongoing operation by Israeli security forces in the Jenin refugee camp and adjacent areas of the city has apparently led to unlawful killings, insecurity for Palestinian residents and massive destruction of the camp, home to some 11,000 Palestinians.it said in a statement.
In this context, the death toll since the start of Israel’s attack on Palestine on October 7 is close to reaching 40,700 in Gaza and more than 600 victims in the reoccupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army found six bodies of hostages in a tunnel under Rafah. The announcement was made by US President Joe Biden, who said that one of them was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen.
I am devastated and outragedBiden said. I have worked tirelessly to bring your beloved Hersh back safely; now the news of his death has broken my heart. It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. Let us not kid ourselves, the Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will continue to work tirelessly to reach an agreement that will secure the release of the remaining hostages. the president stated.
The country will tremble: Israeli mourners
In Israel, the forum of families of the kidnapped called on the social network X to the population to get ready to demonstrate today. (Benjamin) Netanyahu abandoned the hostages. Now it is a fact. Starting this Sunday, the country will tremble (…). The country will come to a standstill. No more abandonment.the statement says.