EU's top diplomat calls for three-day ceasefire to curb polio spread in Gaza

The polio disease has re-emerged in the war-torn enclave more than two decades after it was eradicated.

Transcript

00:00The European Union's foreign policy chief has called for an immediate three-day humanitarian

00:07ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to allow the population to be vaccinated against polio.

00:15In a post on social platform X, Borrell warned that the quick spread of polio threatens all

00:21children in Gaza already weakened by displacement, deprivation and malnourishment.

00:29UN agencies, World Health Organization and UNICEF say they are ready to vaccinate around

00:35640,000 children.

00:38Aid workers warn that without a humanitarian pause, a vaccination drive due to begin this

00:45weekend could fail to reach enough children to stop the fast-spreading polio virus.

00:50A truce of three days is first of all totally insufficient to tackle the polio crisis in

01:03Gaza and second, well it's not a truce that we need, it's a ceasefire.

01:11The population is in constant displacement so it's extremely difficult to provide humanitarian

01:18aid in Gaza at the moment with a population which is constantly on the road or it was

01:25not able to stay in one place for more than a few days.

01:30Polio has re-emerged more than two decades after it was eradicated in Gaza as the war-torn

01:36enclave remained under Israeli military operations for the last 10 months.

01:41The severe cases lead to irreversible paralysis.