At Least 9 Killed in Syrian Government Shelling of Idlib Village

26 October 2023, Syria, Idlib: A child inspects the damage after a missile strike that targeted the city of Idlib by the Syrian regime. Photo: Anas Alkharboutli/dpa
26 October 2023, Syria, Idlib: A child inspects the damage after a missile strike that targeted the city of Idlib by the Syrian regime. Photo: Anas Alkharboutli/dpa
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At Least 9 Killed in Syrian Government Shelling of Idlib Village

26 October 2023, Syria, Idlib: A child inspects the damage after a missile strike that targeted the city of Idlib by the Syrian regime. Photo: Anas Alkharboutli/dpa
26 October 2023, Syria, Idlib: A child inspects the damage after a missile strike that targeted the city of Idlib by the Syrian regime. Photo: Anas Alkharboutli/dpa

Syrian government forces' shelling of a northwestern village Saturday killed at least nine people, including six children, as they picked olives, opposition activists said.

The shelling of the village of Qawqafeen, in Idlib province, is the latest violation of a truce reached in March 2020 between Russia and Türkiye, who back rival sides in Syria’s 12-year conflict that has killed half a million people.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded over the past years in violations of the truce that ended a monthslong Russian-backed government offensive on the northwestern Idlib province, the last major opposition stronghold in Syria.

The shelling of the farm was reported by the Britain-based opposition war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets.
The White Helmets said it treated one woman who was wounded and handed over the bodies of the dead to their families.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.