Sputnik, Reuters and Europa Press
The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, July 27, 2024, p. 21
Rome. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced yesterday that it had to cut food rations for residents of the Gaza Strip due to a new influx of displaced people following recent evacuation orders from Tel Aviv.
The post on social media X detailed that food and humanitarian aid supplies in the center and south of the Palestinian enclave are very scarce, in addition to the fact that there are very few commercial supplies left.
Meanwhile, concerns about the massive spread of disease in the enclave continue to grow, leading the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to announce that the organization is sending one million polio vaccines to Gaza, after the virus was found in samples in the area.
Although there have been no reported cases of polio yet, without immediate action it is only a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected.the WHO director mentioned in an opinion article in the British newspaper The Guardian.
He also specified that children under five years of age are most at risk of contracting the viral disease, and especially those under two years of age, since normal vaccination campaigns have been interrupted by more than nine months of conflict.
Polio, which is transmitted primarily by the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.
Hamas on Monday rejected new conditions imposed by Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza, said Walid al-Kilani, the organization’s spokesman in Lebanon.
Our proposal on the cessation of hostilities remains the same, we handed it over to the mediators three weeks ago, but (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu presented additional conditions, which were rejected by Hamas and the Palestinian factions.the spokesman said.
According to media reports, Israel is trying to introduce changes to the Gaza armistice plan, which complicates a final agreement. Another stumbling block is Tel Aviv’s demand to maintain control of Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army indicated yesterday that its troops are preparing for a decisive offensive against the Hamas-aligned, Iran-backed Hezbollah movement on the border with Lebanon, following months of cross-border shootings.
The commander of Israel’s northern border forces, General Ori Gordin, told soldiers: “We have already eliminated more than 500 ‘terrorists’ in Lebanon, the vast majority of them belonging to Hezbollah.”
At least 523 people have been killed in Lebanon after more than nine months of cross-border attacks, most of them fighters but also 104 civilians, according to AFP estimates. On the Israeli side, at least 18 soldiers and 13 civilians were killed, according to authorities.