Hours after the first phase of a polio vaccination campaign wrapped up in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike hit the courtyard of the hospital there.
The strike outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital occurred overnight, shortly before the World Health Organization said on Thursday that the effort to vaccinate children had shifted to the southern part of the Gaza Strip, signalling the second phase of the campaign.
According to the UN, Israel had agreed to brief, staggered pauses in its military invasion of Gaza to allow health officials to make a frantic drive to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children and avert a deadly polio outbreak.
The strike near the hospital, in the city of Deir al-Balah, killed four people and wounded a number of others, including women and children, according to Wafa news agency.
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The health ministry in Gaza said Thursday that at least 40,878 people have been killed, and 94,454 people wounded in the Israeli military campaign, now nearing its 12th month,
