Afghanistan is launching a four-day polio vaccination campaign, the Taliban-run public health ministry says.
Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where the crippling disease remains endemic.
Vaccination teams face difficulties in both places but those in Afghanistan have been unable to work in parts of the country for much of the past three years.
Vaccinators have faced many dangers from the long conflict, including the risk of kidnapping and roadside bombs.
There was also a Taliban ban on vaccination teams in the parts of the country it controlled before it took Kabul in August this year.
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Some hardline clerics claimed the vaccinations were un-Islamic or that vaccinators were spies for the West.
This means that, since 2018, an estimated 3.3 million children have missed out on a polio vaccination.
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But the apparent U-turn from the Taliban appears to be aimed at improving their profile abroad and showing they can cooperate with international agencies.
Such cooperation could encourage more countries to recognise the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government, also bringing the possibility of more aid for what is a struggling economy.
The Taliban’s acting public health minister, Dr Qalandar Ebad, said: “Without any doubt polio is a disease that without treatment will either kill our children or cause them with permanent disability, so in this case the only way is to implement the vaccination.”
It is estimated that 10 million Afghan children aged under five will be targeted by the programme, which will start on Monday.
Nek Wali Shah Momin, a health ministry official in the polio eradication department, said the task ahead was “gigantic”, adding that it would need “the support of all linked departments”.
The parents of an Israeli hostage have told him “we love you, stay strong, survive” after he appeared with part of his arm missing in a video released by Hamas.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped at the Nova musical festival when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
The video shows him with his lower left arm missing; witnesses said it was blown off when he helped throw grenades out of a shelter where people were hiding.
He reportedly used his shirt as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding, but was captured.
Clearly under duress in the undated video, the 23-year-old criticises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, saying they should be “ashamed” for not securing the hostages’ release.
He also claims Israeli bombings have killed “about 70 detainees like me” and that the rest are living in an “underground hell without water, food, or sun”.
Mr Goldberg-Polin, who wears a red shirt and sits against a plain white wall, finishes with an appeal to his parents, telling them “stay strong” and “I love you so much, and miss you so much”.
His parents responded to Wednesday’s video by filming their own emotional response.
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Jon Polin says hearing his son for the first time in more than 200 days is “overwhelming”.
“We are relieved to see him alive but we are also concerned about his health and wellbeing as well as that of all the other hostages, and all of those suffering in this region,” he says.
Mr Polin calls for the countries involved in negotiations to “be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal done to reunite all of us with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region”.
His mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, stares resolutely into the camera and tells him: “Hersh, if you can hear his, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days… I am telling you – we are telling you – we love you, stay strong, survive.”
The 23-year-old was born in California but moved to Jerusalem with his family when he was younger.
He was among about 250 Israelis and foreigners kidnapped in the initial Hamas attack, which also killed around 1,200 people.
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Israel’s aim to wipe out Hamas has so far killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health authority.
Hundreds of thousands are also said to be on the brink of starvation and have been forced to flee the violence.
Fears are growing that a ground assault on the southern city of Rafah – where more than a million people are sheltering – is imminent after Mr Netanyahu said Israel was “moving ahead” with its plans.
“Because it’s built to withstand both biological and chemical attacks,” Dr Yehezkel Caine told Sky News as we entered the complex, “we have an airlock which is built of two separate sets of blast doors”.
Beyond they have installed a whole new level of wards below the existing underground hospital, ripping out a logistics floor and installing more beds and equipment.
The bunkers would be activated should other hospitals closer to the front need evacuating.
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They are planning for worst-case scenarios here like an all-out war with Hezbollah.
“The hospitals in the north will be overwhelmed with casualties and they themselves will come under fire, in which case they would have to evacuate their patients to the centre of the country, the same as we did in the first weeks of the war in the south,” said Dr Caine.
He and his staff know the 7 October attack last year by Hamas and Iran‘s missile and drone barrage earlier this month have changed everything for the people of Israel.
“For the civilian population since the war of independence we’ve never been in a situation where the threat to the civilian population has been as great,” he said.
Above ground, the Herzog Medical Centre continues with its peacetime specialisms.
It has Israel’s largest ventilator unit, treating adults and children, but also excels in psycho-trauma treatment and geriatric rehabilitation.
Many of those suffering PTSD from the trauma in this conflict are treated here.
A 16-year-old boy has been arrested by anti-terrorism police in France after he allegedly said on social media he wanted to “die a martyr” at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.
A spokesperson said on Wednesday the boy was arrested after he “publicly announced on social media that he planned to create an explosive belt to become a martyr”.
The teenager was arrested at his parents’ home on Tuesday after the alleged posts on Telegram the day prior, BFMTV reported.
The French outlet also reported that a search of the teenager’s home found handwritten papers in which he allegedly declared support for Islamic State.
The spokesperson said that an investigation was under way into whether he had genuine intentions to commit a terrorist act.
The government also asked 45 foreign countries to contribute several thousand extra military, police and civilian personnel to help safeguard the games, Reuters reports.
Earlier this month, Mr Macron said he was confident the opening ceremony, planned to take place on the River Seine, would go ahead but that France had “plan Bs, and even plan Cs” just in case.
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This came in the face of concerns over potential security threats to the Games.
The 26 July event is set to be the first Olympic opening ceremony held outside a stadium setting and will see about 10,500 athletes parade through the heart of the French capital on some 160 boats on the Seine along a 3.7-mile route.
But if issues did arise, Mr Macron said that the ceremony could be restricted to the central Paris Trocadero square, facing the Eiffel Tower.
Another option would be to move the event indoors, to the Stade de France.