Second phase of polio vaccination campaign begins in southern Gaza: UN

The second phase of administering polio vaccinations to children under 10 years of age got underway in Gaza's southern zone, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the first phase of polio vaccinations in central Gaza was completed on Wednesday, with 187,000 children vaccinated, well more than the target of 156,000 vaccinations.

The third and final phase is slated for northern Gaza, following the campaign in the south. Humanitarians hope to reach a total of 640,000 children. After four weeks, a second round of oral doses will be administered to complete the campaign, which was initiated when a 10-month-old was diagnosed with the disease.

"Sigrid Kaag, the senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, visited the Gaza Strip earlier today (Thursday) to see firsthand the polio vaccination efforts that are taking place as we speak," Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told a regular briefing with reporters.

Dujarric said Kaag visited the training center at Khan Younis, where the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, known as UNRWA, rebuilt a logistics base. She also stopped at a Japanese health clinic where UNRWA administers polio vaccinations.

OCHA said that despite the challenges faced, the world body and other humanitarian organizations continue to do everything possible to provide life-saving aid to Palestinians.

Humanitarians said hostilities, insecurity, damaged roads, the breakdown of law and order, and access limitations resulted in critical shortages of aid commodities to sustain operations, increasing the risk of spoilage and infestation of food supplies due to high temperatures.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that 11 months into the war, international media crews have still been banned from entering Gaza to report on the humanitarian impact.

At least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to Palestinian sources.

Palestinian security sources reported that an Israeli drone targeted a gathering in northern Rafah, a city located in the southern Gaza Strip. Medical sources said two people were killed in the attack.

The Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza said in a press statement that a Palestinian was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent sheltering displaced people west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Meanwhile, ambulance and civil defense crews retrieved the bodies of three Palestinians, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a gathering near a school-turned-shelter for the displaced in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, according to local sources and eyewitnesses.

The Israeli army also bombed displacement tents in the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah. Medical sources told Xinhua that the shelling killed four Palestinians and wounded several others.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi reiterated on Thursday that any attempt to displace Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan would be viewed as "a declaration of war," to which his country would respond accordingly.

The minister made the remarks at a joint press conference with visiting German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Safadi called on Germany to impose sanctions on Israel in light of its continued aggression against Palestinians.

Germany should take clear steps to impose sanctions on the Israeli government and officials who spread hatred, incite violence, justify the killing of innocent people, and escalate tensions in the region, he said.

He also affirmed that Jordan would not send its soldiers as part of an international force to the Gaza Strip, nor would it accept any approach that treats Gaza as a separate entity from the West Bank.

Safadi stressed that peace, security and stability can only be achieved with a holistic approach that addresses the root causes of the conflict, referring to ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state.

For her part, Baerbock stressed the need for lasting peace in the region and expressed her "total rejection" of any attempt to destabilize the status quo of the holy sites in Jerusalem.

(With input from Xinhua)