UNRWA lauds progress in polio drive, calls for permanent truce

Good progress is being made in rolling out a polio vaccine to children in Gaza but a permanent ceasefire in the 11-month war is needed to ease humanitarian suffering, the main UN agency for Palestinians said Wednesday.Unrwa said that three days into the campaign in areas of central Gaza, around 187,000 children had received the vaccine. The campaign will move to other areas of the Palestinian enclave for the second stage.Israel and the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas agreed to daily pauses of eight hours in the fighting in pre-specified areas to allow the vaccination programme. No violations have been reported.The head of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, said on X,"While these polio 'pauses' are giving people some respite, what is urgently needed is a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages + the standard flow of humanitarian supplies including medical and hygiene supplies (into Gaza)."Gaza has around 2.3mn people and is one of the world's most densely populated places.Despite the success of the polio campaign, diplomatic efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire, release hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel, have faltered.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on Monday that Israeli troops would remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of Gaza bordering Egypt, one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal.Hamas, which wants any agreement ending the war to include a withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza, says such a condition, among some others, would prevent an accord.The impasse is frustrating Israel's international allies and the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council.Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the only way a deal could be reached was if Israel agreed to a US proposal on July 2, endorsed by the Security Council, and accepted by the group.More than 40,861 Palestinians have been killed and 94,398 have been wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement Wednesday.Israeli forces continued their campaign in several areas of Gaza. In Khan Younis, an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinians, including a girl, medics said, while an airstrike in the Darraj suburb of Gaza City killed a local doctor.In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, medics said an Israeli airstrike killed six Palestinians awaiting aid trucks near the Sheikh Zayed housing project.