Arab League Calls on Int’l Community to End Israeli Assault on Gaza

 A youth walks past a building which was destroyed in previous Israeli bombardments in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, on April 1, 2024, amid the ongoing battles Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A youth walks past a building which was destroyed in previous Israeli bombardments in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, on April 1, 2024, amid the ongoing battles Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Arab League Calls on Int’l Community to End Israeli Assault on Gaza

 A youth walks past a building which was destroyed in previous Israeli bombardments in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, on April 1, 2024, amid the ongoing battles Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A youth walks past a building which was destroyed in previous Israeli bombardments in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, on April 1, 2024, amid the ongoing battles Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

The Arab League Secretariat General called on Monday the international community to take action to end the Israeli occupation and its assault on Gaza, as well as to stop attacks on holy sites, carried out with the aim of Judaizing Jerusalem.

In a statement issued in Cairo on the occasion of Land Day, the league expressed its support for the Palestinian people's noble goal of establishing its independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

It also commended the Palestinian people’s steadfastness and sacrifices of its martyrs, the injured and the prisoners, toward establishing their own state and denounced the policies of the Israeli authorities against Palestinians.



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.