How a ceasefire in Gaza could help prevent a deadly outbreak of polio 

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Children under the age of 5, are most at risk from Polio amid the conflict, bottom, which has devastated Gaza’s health system. (AFP/File)
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Updated 12 August 2024
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How a ceasefire in Gaza could help prevent a deadly outbreak of polio 

  • Overcrowding, destruction of sanitation, and a deteriorating health system have contributed to the reemergence of polio 
  • The WHO has announced plans to send 1.2 million polio vaccines to Gaza after the virus was detected in wastewater

LONDON: More than 1 million children in the Gaza Strip are at risk of contracting type 2 poliovirus, a highly infectious disease that can lead to paralysis and even death, as displacement and the destruction of sanitation infrastructure leaves the population vulnerable to disease.

The World Health Organization has announced plans to send 1.2 million polio vaccines to Gaza after the virus was detected in wastewater samples taken last month from displacement camps in the northern governorates of Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah.

Although no clinical cases of polio have been diagnosed so far, Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director, warned that the virus could “spread further, including across borders” unless agencies acted quickly to vaccinate the population.




In this photo taken on September 9, 2020, a UNRWA employee provides poliomyeletis vaccine for children at a clinic in Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Health officials have detected poliovirus in Gaza again amid a raging war that has destroyed most of the health centers in the area. (AFP/File)

However, any mass polio immunization campaign in Gaza, targeting 600,000 children under the age of 8, would face a host of challenges, chief among them the absence of a ceasefire which would allow medics to safely access displaced communities.

“We need a ceasefire, even a temporary ceasefire, to successfully undertake these campaigns,” Balkhy said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

Children under the age of 5, and especially infants, are most at risk from polio, as many missed out on the regular vaccination campaigns that had taken place in Gaza before the conflict began on Oct. 7.

The virus, which spreads through contact with the feces, saliva or nasal mucus of an infected individual, attacks nerves in the spinal cord and the brain stem, leading to partial or total paralysis within hours.

It can also immobilize chest muscles, causing trouble breathing, even leading to death.




PAHO/WHO infographic

Polio was eradicated in Europe in 2003 thanks to an effective vaccination campaign. There have been no confirmed cases of paralysis due to polio caught in the UK since 1984.

Wild poliovirus cases have fallen by more than 99 percent since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries to six reported cases in 2021.

Of the three strains of wild poliovirus, type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and type 3 was eradicated in 2020. As of 2022, endemic type 1 remained in just two countries — Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In Gaza, overcrowding, a lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of type 2, according to Hamid Jafari, the WHO’s director of polio eradication, speaking at Wednesday’s press briefing.




WHO says overcrowding, a lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of polio in Gaza. (AFP)

The UN estimates at least 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants, including wastewater treatment facilities and sewage pumping stations, have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the conflict.

In late July, Gaza’s health authority declared the enclave a “polio epidemic zone,” blaming the resurgence of the virus on Israel’s bombing campaign and the ensuing damage this had caused to the healthcare system.

The Israeli military began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Although the Israeli military insists it does not target civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and utilities have suffered major damage.

The more than 490 attacks on medical facilities and personnel, documented by the UN during the first six months of the conflict alone, have left Gaza’s healthcare system in tatters. Just 16 of Gaza’s 36 health facilities remain partially functioning.

INNUMBERS

1.2 million Polio vaccines the WHO plans to send to Gaza to prevent outbreak.

600,000 Children under the age of 8 to be targeted in vaccination drive.

70% Proportion of Gaza’s sanitation facilities damaged or destroyed.

1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza displaced multiple times since the conflict began.

Three of these facilities are in the north, seven in Gaza City, three in Deir Al-Balah, three in Khan Younis, and none in the southern city of Rafah, according to the US-based nongovernmental organization Physicians for Human Rights.

Javid Abdelmoneim, a medical team leader for Medecins Sans Frontieres, who was working at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza last month, told the organization “every day in July has been one shock after another.”

Recounting one particularly traumatic incident, he said: “I walked in behind a curtain, and there was a little girl alone, dying by herself. And that’s the outcome of a collapsed health system. A little 8-year-old girl, dying alone on a trolley in the emergency room.

“In a functioning health system, she would have been saved.”




Medical equipment are laid to waste at a hospital in Gaza that had been destroyed by Israeli bombardment. (AFP)

Despite calls from the WHO and other aid bodies for the warring parties in Gaza to allow “absolute freedom of movement” so that medics can roll out a vaccination campaign, the possibility of a ceasefire appears no closer.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for several parts of northern Gaza, including Beit Hanoun, Manshiyya and Sheikh Zayed.

Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army’s spokesperson, posted the evacuation orders on the social media platform X. He instructed the residents of Beit Hanoun to “relocate immediately” to Deir Al-Balah and Zawayda.

“Beit Hanoun area is still considered a dangerous combat zone,” he added.




The constant evacuation of Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip has hampered the rollout of a vaccination campaign. (AP)

Despite assurances that these areas would be treated as safe zones in which civilians could shelter, both Deir Al-Balah and Zawayda have come under regular Israeli attack in recent months.

The UN reported that while nowhere in Gaza is safe, 86 percent of the besieged Palestinian enclave is under Israeli evacuation orders. About 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been displaced multiple times since Oct. 7.

“Nowhere is safe. Everywhere is a potential killing zone,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the opening of the UNRWA Pledging Conference on July 12.

The continuous movement of families in Gaza has made it difficult for aid agencies, which are already short of funds and struggling to reach affected populations, to locate and identify unvaccinated children.




In this file photo, a polio patient is fitted for an artificial limb at a rehabilitation center for prosthetics and treating polio in Gaza City. The war in Gaza has hampered the operation of the rehab center. (Getty Images)

The WHO’s polio specialist Jafari warned that the virus could have been circulating in Gaza since September, as the enclave offered “ideal conditions” for its transmission.

Before Oct. 7, polio vaccine coverage in the Occupied Palestinian Territories was estimated at 89 percent, according to the WHO.

Even if the planned 1.2 million vaccines are successfully brought into Gaza, it will be a “huge logistical challenge” to ensure their successful deployment, WHO official Andrea King told the BBC.

The vaccines must be stored within a limited temperature range from the moment they are manufactured until they are administered. Bringing these chilled vaccines into Gaza and keeping them at the required temperature would be a difficult undertaking at the best of times.




With a war going on, bringing chilled vaccines into Gaza and keeping them at the required temperature would be a difficult undertaking at the best of times, say WHO officials. (Getty Images)

The WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that a ceasefire or at least a few days of calm was essential to protect Gaza’s children.

As of July 7, the WHO has recorded a surge in infectious diseases, including 1 million cases of acute respiratory infections, 577,000 of acute watery diarrhea, 107,000 of acute jaundice syndrome, and 12,000 of bloody diarrhea.

It says this is primarily due to a lack of clean drinking water and the destruction of a critical water facility in Rafah, southern Gaza.
 

The Yazidi nightmare
Ten years after the genocide, their torment continues

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What are US troops doing in the Middle East and where are they?

Updated 4 min 4 sec ago
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What are US troops doing in the Middle East and where are they?

  • Since 2023, the Houthi movement has launched more than 100 attacks on ships off Yemen’s coast, which they say were in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war in Gaza with Iran-backed Hamas militants

WASHINGTON: The United States and Iran are set for talks this weekend in Oman as President Donald Trump reiterated this week threats of military action against Tehran if it does not agree to limits on its nuclear program.
Western countries suspect Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which Iran denies.
If Iran does not make a deal, Trump has said, “There will be bombing, and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Here is what we know about the US military presence in the Middle East:

WHERE ARE US BASES IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
The US has operated bases around the Middle East for decades and the largest is Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, built in 1996, based on the number of personnel.
Other countries where the US has troops include Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
There are normally about 30,000 US troops across the region, down sharply from when US forces were involved in major operations. There were more than 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan in 2011 and over 160,000 in Iraq in 2007.
The US has roughly 2,000 troops in Syria at small bases mostly in the northeast. About 2,500 US personnel are stationed in Iraq including at the US Union III site in Baghdad.

WHAT REINFORCEMENTS HAS TRUMP SENT?
The Pentagon has said that it surged additional forces to the Middle East in recent weeks.
It also relocated as many as six B-2 bombers in March to a US-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which experts said would put them in an ideal position to intervene quickly in the Middle East.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that it was up to Iran to decide whether to interpret this as a message to Tehran.
The Pentagon has also sent other aircraft and more air defense assets including a Patriot missile defense battalion.
Two US aircraft carrier ships are in the Middle East, and each carries thousands of troops and dozens of aircraft.

WHY ARE US TROOPS STATIONED IN THE REGION?
US troops are stationed in the Middle East for a variety of reasons.
In some countries like Iraq, US troops are fighting Daesh militants and local forces. But over the past several years Iran-backed fighters have attacked US personnel who have struck back.
Jordan, a key US ally in the region, has hundreds of US trainers and they hold extensive exercises throughout the year.
US troops are in other countries such as Qatar and the UAE as a security assurance, for training and to assist in regional military action as needed.
The United States is undertaking a bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen.
DO US BASES IN THE REGION GET ATTACKED OFTEN?
US bases are highly guarded facilities, including air defense systems to protect against missiles or drones. Facilities in countries like Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait are not usually attacked.
But US troops in Iraq and Syria have come under frequent attack in recent years.
Since 2023, the Houthi movement has launched more than 100 attacks on ships off Yemen’s coast, which they say were in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war in Gaza with Iran-backed Hamas militants.
These include drone and missile strikes on US Navy ships in the region. So far, no Houthi attack is known to have damaged a US warship.

 

 


Samaritans mark Passover in West Bank, hoping for ‘peace’

Updated 12 April 2025
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Samaritans mark Passover in West Bank, hoping for ‘peace’

  • “The Samaritans’ Passover is the festival of freedom, the festival of independence, of the forgiveness of our Lord for the children of Israel,” Khader Adel Najer Cohen, a priest and director of the Samaritan Studies Center, told AFP

GERIZIM, Palestinian Territories: Wearing white overalls and red fez hats, dozens of Samaritan men slaughtered sheep for Passover Friday as prayers in ancient Hebrew echoed across Mount Gerizim in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
A group of priests in colorful robes recited the sacred verses as younger men in white caps herded the sheep.
“What’s happening here is something that we’ve been doing for 3,600 years,” 30-year-old Abood Cohen told AFP.
Dressed in butcher’s whites, the young Samaritan wore a smudge of sheep’s blood on his forehead as he explained the traditions of his small religious community that developed alongside Judaism.
According to their tradition, Samaritans are descended from Israelites and view Jews as close, yet distinct, relatives.
Many Christians recognize the name through the parable of the Good Samaritan.
“Every family has to bring one sheep,” Cohen said. The animal is then slaughtered and cooked on Mount Gerizim near the West Bank city of Nablus.
“Why do we do it here in Gerizim? Because the holiest place on earth is Mount Gerizim for the Samaritans,” he said.
The community believes this is the place where Abraham almost sacrificed his son for God.
Like Jews, Samaritans celebrate the Israelites’ freedom from slavery in Egypt at Passover.
“The Samaritans’ Passover is the festival of freedom, the festival of independence, of the forgiveness of our Lord for the children of Israel,” Khader Adel Najer Cohen, a priest and director of the Samaritan Studies Center, told AFP.
But the ritual slaughter, as well as the fact that the community’s holiest site is Gerizim, not the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, are two elements that set Samaritans apart from Jews.

Passover is also the time for two Samaritan communities to come together, Abood Cohen said.
Out of 880 Samaritans, half live in Gerizim and speak mostly Arabic, while the other half have lived in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon since the early 20th century, and speak mostly Hebrew.
“They get involved in the Israeli culture more, so they might speak Hebrew more than us,” said Abood Cohen, who works as a tour guide.
Yefet Tsedaka, a Samaritan priest from Holon and editor of a Samaritan community magazine, highlighted the communities’ shared heritage.
“We in Holon are just a branch of the Gerizim, because the high priest is here,” he said.
Sitting next to him, Hosni Wasef Cohen, priest and director of the Samaritan museum, concurred.
“As Samaritans, we all come together here to make the sacrifice. There is no difference between Samaritans here and in Holon.”
Gerizim’s Samaritans have historically strong ties with Palestinians, and some hold political office in nearby Nablus.
But since the war in Gaza and heightened tensions in the West Bank have led to movement restrictions for Palestinians, crowds were smaller this year.
“It’s very different (this year). If there were no war, there would be many guests coming from Nablus — our friends, and our friends from the government would come to Nablus and the Israelis too, and they would all gather here,” said Jameel Samri, a Samaritan priest.
“We hope there will be peace and that everyone can come and see” next year, he added.
Hod, a Holon Samaritan who did not wish to share his last name for privacy reasons, told AFP that “because of the situation we need to reduce the amount of the Arabs that come here.”
A worker in the high-tech sector, Hod added that “we want to be good with the Israel side, because we are Israelis.”
But priest Khader Cohen lamented the distance that the war and the movement restrictions had brought to the communities.
“We used to love that the Palestinians and Israelis would participate with us and celebrate together, because we are a bridge of love and peace between peoples,” he told AFP.
 

 


Israel’s army says it will fire air force reservists who condemned the war

Updated 12 April 2025
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Israel’s army says it will fire air force reservists who condemned the war

  • Soldiers are required to steer clear of politics, and they rarely speak out against the army
  • Israel has imposed a blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle

TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel’s military said Friday it will fire air force reservists who signed an open letter that condemns the war in Gaza for mainly serving political interests while failing to bring home the hostages.
In a statement to The Associated Press, an army official said there was no room for any individual, including reservists on active duty, “to exploit their military status while simultaneously participating in the fighting,” calling the letter a breach of trust between commanders and subordinates.
The army said it had decided that any active reservist who signed the letter will not be able to continue serving. It did not specify how many people that included or if the firings had begun.
Nearly 1,000 Israeli Air Force reservists and retirees signed the letter, published in Israeli media Thursday, demanding the immediate return of the hostages, even at the cost of ending the fighting.
The letter comes as Israel has ramped up its offensive in Gaza, trying to increase pressure on Hamas to return the 59 hostages still being held. More than half are presumed dead. Israel has imposed a blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle. It has pledged to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory and establish a new security corridor through it.
While those who signed the letter did not refuse military service, they are the latest in a growing number of Israeli soldiers speaking out against the prolonged conflict, some saying they saw or did things that crossed ethical lines.
“It’s completely illogical and irresponsible on behalf of the Israeli policy makers … risking the lives of the hostages, risking the lives of more soldiers and risking lives of many, many more innocent Palestinians, while it had a very clear alternative,” Guy Poran, a retired Israeli Air Force pilot who spearheaded the letter told The AP.
He said he’s not aware of anyone who signed the letter being fired, and since it was published, it has gained dozens more signatures.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed the letter on Friday, saying it was written by a “small handful of weeds, operated by foreign-funded (non-governmental organizations) whose sole goal is to overthrow the right-wing government.” He said anyone who encourages refusal will be immediately dismissed.
Soldiers are required to steer clear of politics, and they rarely speak out against the army. After Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel quickly united behind the war launched against the militant group. Divisions here have grown as the war progresses, but most criticism has focused on the mounting number of soldiers killed and the failure to bring home hostages, not actions in Gaza.
Advocates for hostage return keep up the pressure
Freed hostages and their families are doing what they can to keep attention on their plight and urge the government to get everyone out.
Agam Berger, a military spotter who was taken hostage and freed in January, plans to join an upcoming March of the Living Ceremony at the sites of former Nazi concentration camps in Poland. Berger, playing a 130-year-old violin that survived the Holocaust, will be accompanied by Daniel Weiss, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri whose parents were killed by Hamas.
But the war ignited by that attack shows no signs of slowing.
Since Israel ended an eight-week ceasefire last month, it said it will push farther into Gaza until Hamas releases the hostages. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire collapsed, according to the United Nations.
The Israeli military on Friday issued an urgent warning to residents in several neighborhoods in northern Gaza, calling on them to evacuate immediately. At least 26 people have been killed and more than 100 others wounded in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Palestinians lined up at a charity kitchen Friday in central Gaza said shortages of food, fuel and other essentials are worsening.
“There is no flour or gas or wood. Everything is expensive and there is no money,” said Reem Oweis, a displaced woman from Al-Mughraqa in south Gaza, waiting in line for a serving of rice, the only food available.
“I completely rely on charity kitchens. If those charity kitchens close, my children and I will die,” said another displaced woman, Nema Faragallah.
Brazil pushes for the release of body of teen who died in Israeli custody
Also this week, Brazil’s Embassy in the West Bank said it had requested the immediate release of the body of a 17-year-old Palestinian prisoner who died in Israeli custody.
A representative from Brazil’s office in Ramallah, told the AP it was helping the family speed up the process to bring Walid Ahmad’s body home. Ahmad had a Brazilian passport.
According to an Israeli doctor who observed the autopsy, starvation was likely the primary cause of his death.
Ahmad had been held for six months without being charged. He was extremely malnourished and also showed signs of inflammation of the colon and scabies, said a report written by Dr. Daniel Solomon, who watched the autopsy conducted by Israeli experts at the request of the boy’s family.
Israel’s prison service said it operates according to the law and all prisoners are given basic rights.
 

 


Family of Palestinian-American teen killed by Israeli troops seeks justice, US govt response

Updated 11 April 2025
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Family of Palestinian-American teen killed by Israeli troops seeks justice, US govt response

  • Amer Rabee, 14, was shot dead on April 6 while picking almonds near his West Bank home
  • Not ‘a single word of remorse or concern’ from American government, uncle tells Arab News

CHICAGO: The family of Palestinian-American Amer Rabee, 14, who was killed on April 6 by Israeli soldiers while picking almonds near his home in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayyah, is seeking justice and a response from the US government, his uncle Rami Jbara said.

The family has not heard “a single word of remorse or concern” from the US government, Jbara, who lives in the state of New Jersey, told Arab News.

He said Rabee was shot dead while with two other Palestinian-American boys, Ayoub Assad and Abdul Rahman Shehadeh.

“The US will move its army for any American citizen in the whole world except in Israel,” he added. “These kids … were unarmed. They had no weapons on them. They’re 13 and 14 years old.”

Jbara said his nephew was shot “all over — his head, his shoulders, his stomach, his legs,” adding that Rabee was in the West Bank studying at the local high school, living with his parents who had moved back there from New Jersey.

Jbara said Rabee’s father protested to the US Embassy in Jerusalem, adding that this was not the first incident with soldiers or settlers from the settlement of Shiloh just north of Turmus Ayyah.

Settlers have been harassing the town’s residents for years, but the harassment has increased in the past year with “no response” from Israel’s government, police or military, he added.

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, representing New Jersey, said Rabee’s death “is another devastating reminder of the horrific human cost of ongoing conflict and tensions in the region.

“There must be a full and transparent accounting of the circumstances around his death and the actions of Israeli security forces.”

Booker added: “I call on the Trump administration to reinstate sanctions on perpetrators of such violence, which directly threatens the objectives of protecting innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians and preventing the war in Gaza and tensions in the West Bank from escalating into a wider regional conflict.”

Palestinians at the Palestinian American Community Center in the city of Clifton, New Jersey, told Arab News that they are meeting to determine how to raise the issue of Rabee’s killing with the US government and to raise awareness of Israeli violence.


Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

Updated 11 April 2025
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Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month

ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.
The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.
The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.
Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.
After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.
Kurds made up 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.