United Nations agencies have begun the second stage of the polio campaign to vaccinate 590,000 children under the age of 10 in Gaza, as Israeli military attacks continue.
At dawn before the launch on Monday, Israel bombed two sites where vaccinations were due to be delivered. Twenty-two people were killed at a school in Nuseirat, while four died and 40 were wounded at a hospital courtyard in Deir al-Balah, when fire swept through tents housing hundreds of displaced people following an Israeli strike.
Despite these strikes, World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said more than 92,000 children, half the number to be vaccinated in central Gaza, were inoculated on Monday. Israeli attacks continued on Tuesday while children lined up at locations in central Gaza to receive the vaccine and vitamin A to protect them from diseases which can be contracted from raw sewage and uncollected rubbish.
In September Israel paused strikes at localities where the first round of vaccinations were taking place. These vaccinations reached 559,161 children, or 95 per cent of those eligible, according to the WHO, which is working with Unicef and Unrwa during the campaign. The first mass effort vaccination in 25 years began after an infant contracted polio in June.
Teams will move south on Wednesday for another 72 hours before shifting to the north of Gaza, where 400,000 Palestinians have resisted pressure to move south from the Israeli military, which has tightened its presence around Jabalia.
Children’s agency Unicef spokesman, James Elder, said Israel had increased the intensity of “forced evacuation” from the north. He said, however, that Gazans were afraid of being killed on the road to the south where there was no room for them in overcrowded “safe zones” which Israel had bombed. They believe they will be unable to return to the north if they leave.
Last November 11 right-wing Israeli groups backed by senior Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich formed a coalition advocate for the resettlement of northern Gaza. Israel withdrew from the Strip in 2005.
After the UN repeatedly claimed that no food or medical supplies had entered northern Gaza since October 1st, the Israeli military said 30 World Food Programme trucks arrived in the Strip on Monday. While none of the aid has reached Jabalia, an Israeli official said this would be “co-ordinated” in coming days.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on Sunday that Israel was battling Hamas pockets in the north but not implementing a plan proposed by retired Israeli generals to force civilians to leave the north and compel Hamas fighters left behind to “surrender or starve”. – Additional reporting: Reuters
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