The provincial health department has admitted that its immunisation programme to deal with the measles outbreak "is not working well enough".

The deaths, all of children younger than a year, are the first in the province since the outbreak late last year.

Despite some suspicions, the Deputy Director of Communications at the department of Health, Mark van der Heever says the latest outbreak of measles is not a mutation.

Thousands of French protesters have rallied against the import of Israeli goods produced in Palestinian territories.

Today's demonstration comes less then a month after the European Union's Court of Justice ruled that Israeli goods made in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank cannot be considered Israeli.

This means that those products cannot benefit from a trade deal giving Israel preferential access to EU markets.

The protesters gathered in the streets of the Mediterranean port of Sete, a hub for the biggest Israeli food exporter, Agrexco.

Over fifty percent of the company, selling over 300,000 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables to Europe, is owned by the Israeli regime.

The Israeli regime has given the green light for the construction of 112 new homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank despite a moratorium on the expansion of settlements.

The new structures will be built in the Beitar Ilit settlement near Bethlehem.

In November, the Israeli regime announced a 10-month moratorium on new building permits for settlers' homes in the occupied West Bank but Tel Aviv has repeatedly disregarded it by approving plans for the expansion of settlements.

The international community considers all Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands as illegal.