World
Photos: Mass polio vaccination drive kicks off in Gaza amid Israeli strikes
Palestinian health authorities and United Nations agencies on Sunday began a vaccination drive against polio in the Gaza Strip, hoping to prevent an outbreak in the territory ravaged by nearly 11 months of Israeli bombardment.
Authorities plan to vaccinate children in central Gaza until Wednesday before moving to the more devastated northern and southern parts of the Strip, aiming to inoculate about 640,000 children. On Saturday, a few children were vaccinated before the formal start of the campaign.
“This is the first few hours of the first phase of a massive campaign, one of the most complex in the world,” said Juliette Touma, communications director of UNRWA, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency.
“Today is test time for parties to the conflict to respect these area pauses to allow the UNRWA teams and other medical workers to reach children with these very precious two drops. It’s a race against time,” Touma told the Reuters news agency.
Israel and Hamas, which have so far failed to conclude a deal to end the war, said they would cooperate to allow the campaign to succeed.
The World Health Organization said on Thursday that Israel has agreed to limited pauses in its military operations to facilitate the campaign. There were initial reports of Israeli strikes in central Gaza early on Sunday, but it was not immediately known if anyone was killed or wounded.
Hospitals in Deir el-Balah and Nuseirat confirmed that the campaign had begun on Sunday. Israel said on Saturday that the vaccination programme would continue through September 9 and last eight hours a day.
The vaccinations will be held at some 160 sites across the territory, including medical centres and schools. Children below 10 years of age will receive two drops of oral polio vaccine in two rounds, the second to be administered four weeks after the first.
Gaza recently reported its first polio case in 25 years – a 10-month-old boy, now paralysed in the leg. The WHO says the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but are not showing symptoms.
Most affected children do not experience symptoms and those who do usually recover in a week or so, the UN health agency said. There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented. When polio causes paralysis, it is usually permanent. The disease can be fatal if the paralysis affects breathing muscles.
The vaccination campaign faces a host of challenges, from ongoing war to devastated roads and hospitals shut down by the war. About 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced within the besieged territory, with hundreds of thousands crammed into squalid tent camps.
Health officials have expressed alarm about disease outbreaks as rubbish piles up and the bombing of critical infrastructure has sent putrid water flowing through the streets. Widespread hunger has left people even more vulnerable to illness.
“We escaped death with our children and fled from place to place for the sake of our children, and now we have these diseases,” said Wafaa Obaid, who brought her three children to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah for vaccination.
new video loaded: Moscow Tanker Blast Most Likely Russian Missile, Video Shows
By James McManagan, Paul Sonne, Malachy Browne and Jackeline Luna
June 19, 2026
World
Man charged with attempted murder, released after allegedly forcing toddler into crocodile enclosure at zoo
Man FORCES child into crocodile enclosure
A British man has been arrested after allegedly forcing a 3-year-old boy into a crocodile enclosure at a zoo. The child suffered critical injuries, and authorities say the suspect did not know the boy as the investigation continues.
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A man was released from custody on Friday after he was charged with attempted murder for allegedly forcing a 3-year-old boy into a crocodile enclosure at a zoo.
Cambridgeshire police said that the man, who remains unidentified, wasn’t fit to be interviewed.
The boy suffered critical injuries in the incident at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a farm and zoo in Huntingdon, England, north of London.
The 30-year-old man will remain on bail until Sept. 30, pending further inquiries.
GEORGIA MOM’S WALMART TRIP DEVOLVES INTO ‘TUG-OF-WARRING’ IN DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SAVE HER SON
A crocodile rests inside an enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a farm and zoo in Old Hurst, Cambridgeshire, Britain, on April 14, 2026. (Dorota Dee Trajdos/Reuters)
“The man, who is not known to the victim, was assessed as not being fit for interview,” police said in a statement.
The boy is in stable condition, after reportedly suffering a broken arm and pelvis.
He was saved from the crocodile by Tracey Johnson, the wife of the zoo’s owner.
MOTHER JUMPS INTO WATER TO SAVE 4-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER WHO FELL BETWEEN CRUISE SHIP AND DOCK
“I know Tracey very well and she’s a lovely lady and it’s nothing more than I’d expect from her,” a local told BBC News. “She’d always put her own life at risk to save someone else. She’s an extraordinary lady and very brave.
The villager added that Johnson put herself in “immense danger” during the rescue.
The owners said their tropical house would remain closed until further notice.
Crocodiles rest inside an enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst farm and zoo in Old Hurst, Cambridgeshire, Britain, on April 14, 2026. (Dorota Dee Trajdos/Reuters)
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the boy and his family following the incident that occurred today,” the owners wrote on social media.
Johnsons of Old Hurst is a farm and zoo north of London in Huntingdon, England. (Google Maps)
Huntingdonshire district councillor Charlotte Lowe said she couldn’t “fathom how it’s happened because they’ve got all the right protection and safety equipment, for want of a better word, in there,” The Guardian reported.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Cambridgeshire Constabulary for comment.
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US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his comments on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, saying she asked him “over and over” for a photo when the pair met at the G7 summit in France earlier this week.
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Following the summit, Trump told an Italian journalist that he “felt sorry for Meloni” after she “begged me to take a picture with her”.
Meloni hit back in a video posted to social media, branding Trump’s claims as “completely made up” and insisting that neither she nor Italy begs anyone for anything.
The once close pair’s relationship has grown increasingly fractious in recent months, particularly since Rome refused to provide the US support for its operations in Iran and after Meloni defended Pope Leo XIV, who was criticised by the Trump administration over his remarks on the war and the US’s immigration policies.
“Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Saturday. “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon”.
“Now, after the United States defeated Iran militarily, she wants to be friends again in order to get her “numbers up.” No thanks!!!” Trump added.
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