Two Oxfam Workers Killed in Syria's Daraa

Destruction in Syria's Daraa. (Reuters)
Destruction in Syria's Daraa. (Reuters)
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Two Oxfam Workers Killed in Syria's Daraa

Destruction in Syria's Daraa. (Reuters)
Destruction in Syria's Daraa. (Reuters)

Two Oxfam aid workers were killed in an attack that targeted their vehicle in Syria on Wednesday, the NGO said.

They were targeted by unidentified gunmen on the Yadoda–Muzayrib road in the western countryside of Daraa.

This is the first time that aid workers get killed in this area where the number of attacks and assassination attempts keep on rising in various methods.

More than 303 attacks took place in the area under different forms, including detonating bombs, mines, booby-trapped cars, and firing with light and medium weapons.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, these attacks killed 194 people, 38 were civilians including four women and two children.

Meanwhile, almost 100 were from the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them and collaborators of the security forces and regime institutions. Also, 16 Syrian militias of Lebanon's ''Hezbollah'' and the Iranian forces were killed in these attacks, in addition to six of what is known as the 5th Corps which was established by Russia.



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.