Politics Israeli army finds several bodies in Gaza before vaccination begins
A few hours before the start of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip, the news of the discovery of several bodies in the war zone caused an outcry in Israel.
It was initially unclear whether the bodies were those of Israeli hostages, but participants in protest rallies stepped up their criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Netanyahu has abandoned the hostages. From tomorrow the country will shake, the public is called upon to prepare," Israeli media quoted representatives of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip as saying.
Meanwhile, the vaccination of hundreds of thousands of children in the Gaza Strip against the polio virus responsible for polio was to begin early this morning. To this end, there are to be temporary and localized pauses in the fighting in the sealed-off coastal area.
Sharp criticism of Netanyahu
In view of the bodies found, Israel's army called on the public not to spread rumors. "At this time, troops are still deployed in the area and are conducting a procedure to recover and identify the bodies, which will take several hours," the military announced on social media on Saturday evening.
Israeli opposition leader Jair Lapid then accused Netanyahu of focusing on insignificant issues while "our sons and daughters are abandoned and dying in captivity", according to the Times of Israel. Thousands of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv and other places in Israel in the evening for an agreement to release the abductees from the control of the Islamist Hamas.
WHO urges safe polio vaccination schedule
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the polio vaccination campaign will continue after three or possibly more days in the south of the sealed-off coastal strip before moving on to northern Gaza. Clinics, medical practices and mobile teams are expected to immunize hundreds of thousands of children against the virus within a few days. The aim is to reach more than 90 percent of children under the age of ten.
The first vaccine doses had already been administered at a press conference held by the Hamas-controlled health authority in the Gaza Strip on Saturday. The WHO called for a safe course of the mass vaccination planned from today. All parties to the conflict must make this possible, demanded WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Platform X. The WHO had previously announced that all sides had made "preliminary commitments to so-called area-specific humanitarian pauses" - meaning limited ceasefires.
Netanyahu's office: ceasefires are not a general ceasefire
Prime Minister Netanyahu's office emphasized in the evening that reports of a general ceasefire to carry out the vaccinations were false. "Israel will only allow a humanitarian corridor through which vaccination personnel can pass; in addition, designated security areas will be set up where the vaccines will be administered during certain hours," it said in a statement.
Recently, the first case of polio in 25 years was reported in the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the war following the Hamas terror attack on the Israeli border area on October 7 last year, many babies and children in the Gaza Strip have been unable to be vaccinated. According to the WHO, the terrible hygienic conditions in the severely devastated coastal strip, where hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people have to survive in cramped conditions and clean water is scarce, could contribute to the rapid spread of the infectious disease.
In a letter to the WHO, the Forum of Relatives of Israeli Hostages Held by Hamas demanded that the kidnapped children in the Gaza Strip should also be vaccinated.
Efforts to reach a Gaza agreement are stuck
Almost 2,200 aid workers have been trained to carry out polio vaccinations in the war zone. In recent weeks, 1.26 million polio vaccine doses have been delivered there, and 400,000 more are due to arrive shortly. Around 640,000 children under the age of 10 are to be vaccinated, with two doses every four weeks.
Meanwhile, efforts to achieve a lasting ceasefire for the entire Palestinian territory are at a standstill. Hopes of a breakthrough in the mediation talks between the USA, Egypt and Qatar in Cairo between Israel and Hamas have so far remained unfulfilled.
The main point of contention is the question of how long Israeli troops may remain stationed in the Gaza Strip, particularly in the Philadelphi Corridor on the southern border with Egypt. Israel's security cabinet recently decided to maintain control of the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Critics - including Defense Minister Joav Galant - fear that holding on could prevent the release of the hostages, as Hamas will not agree to Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor.
"Netanyahu and his partners in the cabinet have decided to torpedo the ceasefire agreement for the Philadelphi corridor, and are thus knowingly condemning the hostages to death," a statement read out by the relatives of the kidnapped said in the evening. The mother of one of the hostages described Netanyahu's insistence on controlling the corridor as a "crime against the people, against the State of Israel and against Zionism". "Netanyahu is not Mr. Security, he is Mr. Death," she said.
Since the war began almost eleven months ago, the number of Palestinians killed in the coastal strip has risen to more than 40,600, according to the authorities in Gaza. The figure does not distinguish between fighters and civilians and is almost impossible to verify.
