Netanyahu hints at partial Gaza truce to allow polio vaccination campaign
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has suggested there could be a partial suspension of military operations in Gaza to allow young children to be vaccinated against polio.
In a statement, Netanyahu’s office denied an Israeli television report that there would be a general truce during the vaccination campaign, which begins at the weekend, but said it had approved the “designation of specific places” in Gaza.
“This has been presented to the security cabinet and has received the support of the relevant professionals,” the statement said.
The terse statement may well have been deliberately vague. Far-right elements of the coalition are adamantly opposed to any form of truce or relief for Gaza’s Palestinian population, but aid agencies have made it clear that the polio outbreak, the first in Gaza for 25 years, would almost certainly spread to Israel if not contained immediately.
The Israeli media report said that a pause in operations was demanded by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, when he visited Israel last week.
The first of two rounds of vaccinations is due to begin on Saturday in an urgent effort to control the spread of the virus after it was found in a baby with paralysis in one leg earlier this month.
More than 25,000 vials of vaccine, enough for over 1m doses, have arrived in Gaza along with the equipment needed to keep them cool while they are being transported. But health experts have warned that it would be virtually impossible to carry out the vaccination drive successfully under bombardment.
To stop the spread of the disease, aid agencies must reach 90% of the estimated 640,000 children under the age of 10 in Gaza. That is already challenging as Palestinians have been subjected to an increasing number of evacuation orders by the Israeli military, crowding them into ever tighter, more remote spaces.
One possibility suggested by Netanyahu’s statement is that Israeli bombardment would be stopped in different areas of Gaza sequentially, to allow aid workers with the vaccines to move from one area to another.
The uncertainty over humanitarian pauses and evacuation orders made planning extremely difficult, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN relief agency Unrwa.
“Plans are the bread and butter of any successful humanitarian operation. You have got to know how many people you are going to reach: where are they located? How are you going to reach them?” Touma said. “Planning is such an important element of the success of any operation, but in Gaza planning is almost nonexistent.”