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ShareJENIN/GAZA: The Zionist entity pressed on with a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank against Palestinian fighters for a fourth day Saturday, as fierce fighting raged in the nearly 11-month Gaza war. Despite the clashes in Gaza, a local health official in the Hamas-run territory said polio vaccinations had begun there.
The World Health Organization says the Zionist entity has agreed to a series of three-day “humanitarian pauses” to facilitate a mass vaccination campaign after the first confirmed case in Gaza in 25 years, although officials had said it was expected to begin on Sunday. Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the pauses are “not a ceasefire”. The campaign follows confirmation last week that a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
An unspecified number of children received the first dose of the vaccination, which involves two doses and is administered orally, at Nasser Hospital
in the southern city of Khan Yunis. Among them was Amal Shaheen’s three-year-old daughter, who was already in the hospital being treated for pneumonia. “We have been in the hospital for 17 days... I spend all my days worrying about her,” Shaheen said. “Today she was vaccinated against polio to protect her, like all the children in the hospital have been vaccinated.”
Bakr Deeb told AFP on Saturday that he brought his three children – all under 10 – to a vaccination point on Saturday despite some initial doubts about its safety. “I was hesitant at first and very afraid of the safety of this vaccination,” he said. “After the assurances of its safety, and with all the families going to the vaccination points, I decided to go with my children as well, to protect them.” Moussa Abed, director of primary healthcare at the health ministry in Gaza, stressed on Saturday that the vaccine was “100 percent safe”.
As clashes and explosions persisted in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the Zionist military said two Palestinians were killed while preparing to carry out separate bombings overnight in the southern West Bank. Palestinian militant group Hamas hailed the twin attacks as a “heroic operation”. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, said it “congratulates” those involved in what it called a “coordinated attack”.
The Zionist army described a vehicle explosion at a petrol station in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc as “an attempted car bombing” by a man who was later killed. An army officer “was moderately injured, and a reservist officer responsible for the security in a nearby community sustained minor injuries”, it said in a statement.
In the second incident, the head of security in the Zionist settlement of Karmei Zur engaged in a car chase with a man who had infiltrated the settlement compound, leading to a collision and the man being “neutralized shortly after”, the statement said. “During the confrontation, an explosive device in the man’s car detonated, it added.
At least 20 Palestinians have been killed by the Zionist army since Wednesday in simultaneous raids in several cities across the northern West Bank. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have said at least 13 of the dead were members of their armed wings. Since Friday, soldiers have concentrated their operations on the city of Jenin and its refugee camps, long a bastion of Palestinian armed groups fighting against the Zionist entity.
On Saturday morning, an AFP photographer in Jenin heard ongoing clashes in the city, where the streets were mostly empty save for armored vehicles, including one that blocked access to the government hospital. “I think it’s the worst day since the start of the raid... We hear from time to time clashes and sometimes there is big bombing,” said hospital director Wisam Bakr. Water and electricity were cut off from the hospital during the raid, forcing it to rely on a generator and water tank, he told AFP.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct 7 attack. The United Nations said Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Zionist troops or settlers since the Gaza war began. Among those killed since Wednesday were an 82-year-old man, said the Palestinian news agency Wafa, and two teenagers, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which said another 55 had been wounded.
Britain, France and Spain expressed concerns about the Zionist entity’s West Bank operation, with Madrid denouncing “an outbreak of violence which is clearly unacceptable”. In Gaza, the Zionist entity pushed on with its deadly offensive, killing at least 48 people. Gaza’s civil defense agency said rescuers had pulled 29 bodies from the rubble since dawn and transported dozens of wounded to hospitals across the devastated territory. In Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, medics said separate Zionist strikes killed at least 19 people, including nine members of the same family.
On Friday, a medical source at the southern Nasser Hospital said a Zionist strike killed three people near the southern city of Khan Yunis. Zionist shelling in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed two people on the same day, the civil defense agency said. The fighting has devastated Gaza, repeatedly displaced most of its 2.4 million people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
The Zionist military campaign has killed at least 40,691 people in Gaza, mostly women and children. The war has drawn in Iran-backed groups from around the region and raised fears of a wider conflict. On Saturday, Lebanese group Hezbollah said it had launched “explosives-laden drones” at the Zionist entity’s Beit Hillel barracks “in response” to Zionist attacks. – Agencies
