Children in north Gaza remain untreated due to a major ongoing Israeli operation and siege [Getty]
The UN said on Wednesday its Gaza child polio vaccination drive was complete, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite Israel’s war on the enclave raging on, with dozens killed daily.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF launched a second round of vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday after Israeli bombing halted an earlier attempt to do so.
“The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed yesterday (Tuesday), with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated with a second dose,” said a joint statement.
It “is a remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances the campaign was executed under”.
Israel’s military has pounded northern Gaza for over a month in a major offensive where they have blocked off access to the area, and prevented anyone from entering or exiting. The army claims it is stopping Hamas fighters from regrouping, despite saying it had defeated them in the north in January this year.
North Gaza ‘inaccessible’
An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to the poliovirus”, the UN organisations said.
The vaccination campaign had been a “success”, according to a statement Wednesday from COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body that manages civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.
The drive began on 1 September with a successful first round, after the besieged territory confirmed its first polio case in 25 years.
Typically spread through sewage and contaminated water, poliovirus is highly infectious.
It can cause deformities and paralysis and is potentially fatal, mainly affecting children aged under five.
The vaccination campaign was managed primarily by UN agencies including the WHO, UNICEF and UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Last month Israel’s parliament adopted a law banning UNRWA’s activities on Israeli territory, garnering international condemnation.
The aid agency remains “the largest primary healthcare provider in the Gaza Strip”, according to Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s senior emergency officer.
The WHO said on Saturday four children were among six people wounded in an Israeli strike on a polio vaccination centre in northern Gaza.
The UN agencies on Wednesday again called for a ceasefire.
“Humanitarian pauses… must be systematically applied beyond the polio emergency response efforts to other health and humanitarian interventions to respond to dire needs,” they said.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 43,391 Palestinians and wounded over 102,347 others since 7 October 2023. The Israeli army has also killed at least 3,013 people in Lebanon and wounded over 13,553 others in the same time frame.Â
