WHO says its deal with Israel will allow limited pauses in Gaza fighting for polio vaccinations

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. World Health Organization said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for polio vaccinations for hundreds of thousands of children after a baby contracted the first confirmed case in 25 years in the Palestinian territory.

The vaccination campaign will start Sunday in central Gaza, with a “humanitarian pause” lasting from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m. for three days that can be extended by an additional day if needed, said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories.

The effort — which has been coordinated with Israeli authorities — will then move to southern Gaza and finally northern Gaza for similar pauses, he told a U.N. press conference by video from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

“I’m not going to say this is the ideal way forward. But this is a workable way forward,” Peeperkorn said.

The vaccination campaign is targeting 640,000 children under 10, who will each receive two drops of oral polio vaccine in two rounds — the second to be given four weeks after the first.

Peeperkorn said the humanitarian pauses are critical so families can bring their children to get vaccinated and get back to where they are staying by 3 p.m.

“We have an agreement on that, so we expect that all parties will stick to that,” he said.

WHO said health workers need to vaccinate at least 90% of children in Gaza to stop the transmission of polio. The campaign will involve more than 2,100 health workers from U.N. agencies and the Gaza Ministry of Health, working at hundreds of sites across Gaza and with mobile teams.

The humanitarian pauses are not a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that mediators U.S., Egypt and Qatar have long been seeking, including in talks that are ongoing this week.

Hamas is “ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this campaign,” according to a statement from Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau.

An Israeli official said before the plan was announced that there was expected to be some sort of tactical pause to allow vaccinations to take place. The official had spoken on condition of anonymity before the plan was finalized.

Israel didn’t immediately comment Thursday. The Israeli army has previously announced limited pauses in limited areas to allow international humanitarian operations.

Robert Wood, U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N., urged Israel to avoid further civilian evacuation orders during the pauses and said workers need security to vaccinate children.

“It is especially important for Israel to facilitate access for agencies carrying out the vaccination campaign and for it to ensure periods of calm and refrain from military operations during vaccination campaign periods,” he said.

The campaign comes after 10-month-old Abdel-Rahman Abu El-Jedian was partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of the virus that vaccinated people shed in their waste, scientists say. The baby boy was not vaccinated because he was born just before Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and Israel launched a retaliatory offensive on Gaza.

He is one of hundreds of thousands of children who missed vaccinations because of the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Polio was eliminated from most parts of the world as part of a decadeslong effort by the WHO and partners to wipe out the disease. Health care workers in Gaza have been warning of the potential for a polio outbreak for months, as the humanitarian crisis unleashed by Israel’s offensive grows.

Displaced Palestinians often live in crowded tent camps, near heaps of garbage and dirty wastewater flowing into the streets that aid workers describe as breeding grounds for diseases like polio, spread through fecal matter.

The polio strain that the 10-month-old contracted evolved from a weakened virus that was originally part of an oral vaccine but had been removed from the vaccine in 2016 in hopes of preventing vaccine-derived outbreaks. Public health authorities knew that decision would leave people unprotected against that particular strain, with scientists saying the case is the result of “an unqualified failure” of public health policy.

AP writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed.

A bulldozer cleans up plastic and other waste materials at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk next a dark streak of sewage flowing into the streets of Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

CORRECTS NAME: Displaced infant Abdel-Rahman Abu El-Jedian, who suffers from polio, sleeps at a makeshift tent camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

CAPTION CORRECTION: Displaced infant Abdel-Rahman Abu El-Jedian, 11-month-old, who suffers from polio, is carried by his mother, center, at a makeshift tent camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine made a new call Saturday on the West to allow it to strike deeper into Russia after a meeting between U.S. and British leaders a day earlier produced no visible shift in their policy on the use of long-range weapons.

“Russian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields, and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said Saturday. “Permission to strike deep into Russia will speed up the solution.”

The renewed appeal came as Kyiv said Russia launched more drone and artillery attacks into Ukraine overnight.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called on allies to greenlight the use of Western-provided long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. So far, the U.S. has allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Discussions on allowing long-range strikes were believed to be on the table when U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in Washington on Friday but no decision was announced immediately.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing the U.S. and other allies to allow his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites farther afield as Russia has stepped up assaults on Ukraine’s electricity grid and utilities before winter.

He did not directly comment on the meeting Saturday morning, but said that more than 70 Russian drones had been launched into Ukraine overnight. The Ukrainian air force later said that 76 Russian drones had been sighted, of which 72 were shot down.

“We need to boost our air defense and long-range capabilities to protect our people,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “We are working on this with all of Ukraine’s partners.”

Other overnight attacks saw one person killed by Russian artillery fire as energy infrastructure was targeted in Ukraine’s Sumy region. A 54-year-old driver was killed and seven more people were hospitalized, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said.

A KAB aerial bomb also fell on a garage complex in the eastern city of Kharkiv, said regional Gov. Ihor Terekhov. No injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, officials in Moscow have continued to make public statements warning that long-range strikes would provoke further escalation between Russia and the West. The remarks are in line with the narrative the Kremlin has promoted since early in the war, accusing NATO countries of de-facto participation in the conflict and threatening a response.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state news agency Tass on Saturday that the U.S. and British governments were pushing the conflict, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, toward “poorly controlled escalation.”

Biden on Friday brushed off similar comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said on Thursday that allowing long-range strikes “would mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia.”

Asked what he thought about Putin’s threat, Biden answered, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”

Russian and Ukrainian officials also announced on Saturday a prisoner swap brokered by the United Arab Emirates. It included 206 prisoners on both sides, including Russians captured in Ukraine’s incursion in the Kursk region.

The swap is the eighth of its kind since the beginning of 2024, and puts the total number of POWs exchanged at 1,994. Previous exchanges were also brokered by the UAE.

Both sides released images of soldiers traveling to meet friends and family, with Zelenskyy commenting, “Our people are home."

Elsewhere, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 19 Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the country’s Kursk and Belgorod regions. No casualties were reported.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

A Ukrainian poses for a selfie as he is greeted after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Ukrainians pose for a photo after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Ukrainians pose for a photo after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Ukrainians pose for a photo after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

A Ukrainian reacts after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

Ukrainians react after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

A Ukrainian serviceman, left, is greeted after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)