“This is urgent. This is vital," said the US secretary of state.
Israel has agreed to support efforts to vaccinate Gazans against polio after the besieged territory reported its first case of the disease in 25 years, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Monday.
"We are working with the Israeli government on this and I believe we will be able to move the plan forward in the coming weeks," Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.
The United Nations said it now has detailed plans to vaccinate children across the Gaza Strip and could begin as early as this month.
But that would require a pause in hostilities, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for two seven-day pauses in the war in Gaza to vaccinate more than 640,000 children in the territory.
Blinken, who did not specify how the vaccination would take place, said he had a "detailed" conversation about the humanitarian situation in Gaza with Defense Minister Yoav Galant.
"We fully share the concern about the possibility of its (polio) re-emergence and we are working on a detailed plan to make sure that those who need to be vaccinated against it will be able to get vaccinated," Blinken said.
Blinken, who also met for three hours with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is pushing for the conclusion of a more permanent ceasefire in the 10-month war.
"We very much share the concern about the possibility of it (polio) re-emerging, and we are working on a detailed plan to make sure that those who need to be vaccinated against it will be able to get vaccinated," Blinken said.
Blinken, who also held a three-hour meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is pushing for the conclusion of a more permanent ceasefire in the 10-month war.
Blinken added that in order to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, "the fastest and most reliable way to achieve this is a ceasefire because that opens up much more opportunities to increase aid." | BGNES, AFP
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