UN Officials Welcome Progress in Gaza Polio Campaign, Call for Permanent Ceasefire 

A young child is restrained before receiving a vaccination for polio in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 4, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A young child is restrained before receiving a vaccination for polio in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 4, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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UN Officials Welcome Progress in Gaza Polio Campaign, Call for Permanent Ceasefire 

A young child is restrained before receiving a vaccination for polio in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 4, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
A young child is restrained before receiving a vaccination for polio in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 4, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

The main United Nations agency for Palestinians said on Wednesday it was making good progress in rolling out a polio vaccine to children in Gaza, but called for a permanent ceasefire in the 11-month war to ease humanitarian suffering.

UNRWA said that three days into the campaign in areas of central Gaza around 187,000 children have received the vaccine. The campaign will move to other areas of the enclave in the second stage.

The campaign was triggered by the discovery of a case of polio in a baby boy last month, the first in Gaza in 25 years. Israel and Hamas agreed to daily pauses of eight hours in the fighting in pre-specified areas to allow the vaccination program. No violations have been reported.

"Great progress! Every day in the Middle Areas of #Gaza, more children are getting vaccines against #Polio," the head of the global relief agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said on X on Wednesday.

"While these polio “pauses” are giving people some respite, what is urgently needed is a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages + the standard flow of humanitarian supplies including medical and hygiene supplies," he said.

Palestinians say a key reason for the return of polio is the collapse of the health system and the destruction of most of Gaza's hospitals. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes, which the group denies.

On Tuesday, COGAT, an Israeli defense ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, said since the beginning of the war, it has facilitated the entry of 282,126 vials of the polio vaccine, enough for 2,821,260 people.

It also said in a statement that approximately 554,512 vials of vaccines have entered the Gaza Strip, which is enough for 4,973,736 individual vaccines for various diseases and potential epidemics in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza has a population of around 2.3 million people.

DIPLOMATIC STANDSTILL

Despite the success of the polio campaign, diplomatic efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire, release hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel, have faltered.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on Monday that Israeli troops would remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of Gaza, one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal.

Hamas, which wants any agreement to end the war to include all Israeli forces out of Gaza, says such a condition, among some others, would prevent an accord. Netanyahu says war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

The impasse is frustrating Israel's international allies and the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council.

Slovenia's UN envoy - council president for September - said on Tuesday that patience is running out and the body will likely consider taking action if a ceasefire cannot be brokered soon.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, the only way a deal can be reached was if Israel agreed to a US July 2 proposal, endorsed by the UN Security Council, and accepted by the group. Both Israel and Hamas blame failure on conditions set by each of the two sides.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to battle Hamas-led fighters in several areas of the enclave, saying they had killed many senior Hamas operatives and struck military infrastructure and command centers in the past day.

The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters confronted Israeli troops in north and south of the territory, with anti-tank rockets, mortar fire and explosive devices.

In Khan Younis, an Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians, including a girl, medics said, while an air strike in Darraj suburb of Gaza City killed a local doctor, Nehad Al-Madhoun, in his house.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel, when its fighters killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 40,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the enclave's health ministry.



Heads of CIA, MI6 Issue Joint Call for Ceasefire in Gaza

Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
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Heads of CIA, MI6 Issue Joint Call for Ceasefire in Gaza

Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Displaced woman Iqbal Al-Zeidi stands in front of her tent which was torn by an Israeli strike, on the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

The heads of the American and British foreign intelligence agencies said Saturday they are “working ceaselessly” for a ceasefire in Gaza, using a rare joint public statement to press for peace.

CIA Director William Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore said their agencies had “exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation.”

In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, the two spymasters said a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war “could end the suffering and appalling loss of life of Palestinian civilians and bring home the hostages after 11 months of hellish confinement.”

Burns has been heavily involved in efforts to broker an end to the fighting, traveling to Egypt in August for high-level talks aimed at bringing about a hostage deal and at least a temporary halt to the conflict.

So far there has been no agreement, though United States officials insist a deal is close.

Burns and Moore also stressed the strength of the trans-Atlantic relationship in the face of “an unprecedented array of threats,” including an assertive Russia, an ever-more powerful China and the constant threat from international terrorism — all complicated by rapid technological change.

They highlighted Russia’s “reckless campaign of sabotage” across Europe and the “cynical use of technology to spread lies and disinformation designed to drive wedges between us.”

The article is the first joint opinion piece by the heads of the two spy agencies. The two directors pointed to a new era of openness in their secretive field, noting that the CIA and MI6 both declassified intelligence about Russia’s plan to invade Ukraine before Moscow attacked its neighbor in February 2022.