The World Health Organisation and partners have vaccinated more than 10,000 young children in Gaza against various diseases this month as they take advantage of the fragile ceasefire in the enclave.
WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post to X on Thursday that the goal was to inoculate 40,000 in the campaign, which began on November 9 and will end on Saturday.
The vaccination drive is aimed at children under three years old in an effort to protect them against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, polio, rotavirus and pneumonia, he said.
A further two phases of the campaign, which is being carried out together with the UN children's fund, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and Gaza's Health Ministry, are scheduled for December and January.
The WHO chief said he was “encouraged to see that the ceasefire continues to hold, as it allows the WHO and its partners to intensify essential health services across Gaza and support the necessary re-equipment and reconstruction of its devastated health system”.
But his post came hours after Israel carried out air strikes that killed 25 people in another test of the truce.
The attacks were among the deadliest since the ceasefire took effect on October 10. Israel accused Hamas militants of opening fire towards an area where Israeli troops were operating in south Gaza. The group denied the accusation and denounced Israel's military response as a “dangerous escalation”.
A Civil Military Co-ordination Centre has been established in the south of Israel to oversee the truce, staffed by about 200 US military personnel.
But the ceasefire has not completely ended the violence. More than 280 people have been killed by Israeli attacks since it took effect. A large number of those deaths occurred on a single day last month when Israel carried out air strikes across Gaza in retaliation for an alleged attack on its troops. Israel says three of its soldiers were killed.
The UN Security Council this week voted in favour of a peace plan for Gaza put forward by US President Donald Trump, which includes a Board of Peace and an international stabilisation force for the enclave. Monday's vote was a pivotal moment in efforts to chart the territory's future after two years of war.
The UN resolution gives the Board of Peace a mandate to manage Gaza until the end of 2027.
UN organisations have carried out large-scale vaccination campaigns across Gaza during previous pauses in the fighting since the war broke out in October 2023.
