A United Nations polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has moved to southern parts of the enclave.
The initiative started on Sunday in central Gaza, with Israel and Hamas agreeing to stop fighting in areas designated for vaccinations. The United Nations had announced that around 190,000 children received the first vaccine.
On Thursday, the campaign started in southern Gaza but it remains to be seen how it will progress.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says that fighting is scheduled to stop between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. for at least three days in designated areas in the south to allow vaccinations for more than 340,000 children.
The focus of attention is on whether pauses in fighting will be maintained while vaccinations are conducted. Before dawn on Thursday, an Israeli shelling in Khan Younis in the south reportedly killed a citizen.
Meanwhile, Israeli security forces have been conducting what they call a counterterrorism operation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank targeting armed Palestinian militants for more than a week now.
Palestinian media say five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed in the over-week-long Israel security operation to 39.
Since last October, the West Bank has seen a dramatic rise in Israeli military operations, along with an escalation in violence committed by Jewish settlers, resulting in heavy Palestinian casualties. Palestinian attacks targeting Israeli security forces and settlers are adding to the deterioration of security in the occupied territory.