A senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said that the Israeli military and Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for the vaccination of some 640,000 children against polio, Reuters reports.

The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s senior official for the Palestinian territories. He said the agreement was for the pauses to take place between 6am and 3pm (0300-1200 GMT).

He said the campaign would start in central Gaza with a three-day pause in fighting, then move to southern Gaza, where there would be another three-day pause, followed by northern Gaza. Peeperkorn added that there was an agreement to extend the humanitarian pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.