Mass polio vaccination continues in Gaza. According to a Unicef report, the first phase of the polio campaign was successfully completed between 1 and 3 September, with more than 187,000 children under the age of ten vaccinated. The target is to reach 640,000 children: a challenging campaign in the context of the war, which saw the World Health Organization (WHO) recently agree with Israel to provide humanitarian breaks and allow health workers to administer the vaccines safely. Both Israel and Hamas have so far respected agreements stipulating an eight-hour break per day after fighting, Unicef said. It was a “rare glimmer of light” in the nearly year-old war, wrote UNRWA director Philippe Lazzarini.
UN: Record number of deaths in a week
Meanwhile, the UN is sounding the alarm again about the escalation of the Israeli aggression in the West Bank. The spokesman for OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Stephane Dujarric) reported that between August 25 and September 2, “the highest number of Palestinians killed in a single week” since November 2024 was recorded. Thirty Palestinians were killed, including seven children. OCHA called for “Israeli forces to respect international legal standards.” However, according to figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 40 people were killed in the Gaza Strip in 24 hours. “In the last 24 hours alone, 42 people were killed and 107 injured due to raids and shelling by Israeli forces,” the ministry recalled. “The number of victims of Israeli aggression to date has reached 40,861, with 94,398 injured.”
Polio resurfaces after decades
Before the war, no polio cases had been recorded in the Gaza Strip for at least 25 years, but months of dire sanitation for Palestinians and a disruption in vaccination campaigns meant the virus had resurfaced. In July, Unicef announced that it had been traced to sewage; on August 23, WHO confirmed the first case: a 10-month-old baby who became paralyzed after contracting the disease. There is a vaccine for polio, but no cure. Only symptomatic treatments can partially reduce the effects of the disease. This means that the child’s paralysis, like that of potentially thousands of other children, is likely to be permanent.
“A 90 percent ceasefire and hostage agreement has been reached” for the US
Meanwhile, a US official reported that “90 percent of the agreement has been reached” on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, according to the Jerusalem Post. “Before the events of this weekend, we were working with Egypt and Qatar, particularly on prisoner exchange agreements and developing a package that would essentially resolve everything,” the official said, according to the Jerusalem Post. He added that the discovery of the bodies of the six hostages who were later killed “changed the character of some of these discussions.”
American sources also report that Hamas partially backed down from previous demands during talks in Qatar last week. The current demand would be the release of more Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in exchange for five 20-year-old female observers currently held captive in Gaza. “Israel was initially supposed to release 150 lifeguards, but Hamas has requested a higher number,” reported Barak Ravid, a reporter for the online publications Walla and Axios, who is believed to be a source familiar with the ongoing negotiations.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
