Vaccinating some babies against polio, a day before a mass immunisation programme is due to begin. Palestinian health workers carried out the vaccinations in nasser hospital in khan younis. Unicef says the vaccinations will take place for six and a half hours every day until wednesday. Israel and hamas have agreed to three localised pauses in fighting to enable the vaccination of more than 600,000 palestinian children. With more from jerusalem here s our correspondent, jon donnison. The official polio vaccination campaign doesn t start until sunday morning. It is being coordinated by the united nations but we do understand that the first babies have been vaccinated today in khan younis in the south of gaza. What it s going to involve and get under way as a series of three day, area specific pauses in fighting that both israel and hamas have agreed to. The key words there are area specific, so we re not talking about the formal ceasefire that diplomats have been pushing for weeks and
Baby abdulrahman was crawling early, but now his mum worries he ll never be able to walk. He was the first child found to have polio in gaza in 25 years, and it paralysed his leg because of the war he wasn t vaccinated and now medical care is limited. He want to live and be treated. He wants to live and walk like other children. I feel a lot of guilt that he didn t get the vaccination, but i couldn t give it to him because of our circumstances. Displaced five times, the baby s family now lives in a crowded tent camp in deir al balah in central gaza. Raw sewage flows through streets nearby. Conditions are ideal for diseases to spread, especially polio, which is highly infectious. Since discovering the virus, un agencies have been racing to set up an emergency mass vaccination programme and with war raging, they ve negotiated three localised three day pauses in fighting with israel and hamas. Un officials say the plan is not ideal, but it s workable. What we re aiming at is to have 640,0