JERUSALEM: The UN said Wednesday its Gaza child polio vaccination drive was complete, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Palestinian territory.
The World Health Organization 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 weeks in a major offensive it says is aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.
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 organizations said.
The vaccination campaign had been a “success,” according to a statement Wednesday from COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that manages civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.
The drive began on September 1 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.
The aid agency remains “the largest primary health care provider in the Gaza Strip,” according to Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s senior emergency officer.
The WHO said Saturday four children were among six people wounded in a strike on a polio vaccination center in northern Gaza.
It was unclear who carried out the attack.
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.
UN says Gaza polio vaccination campaign complete
https://arab.news/r8wnc
UN says Gaza polio vaccination campaign complete
- The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed Tuesday, with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated
- An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated”
Rubio pushes for New Year’s humanitarian truce in Sudan
- “Ninety-nine percent of our focus is this humanitarian truce and achieving that as soon as possible,” Rubio said
- “And we think that the new year and the upcoming holidays are a great opportunity”
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the new year offered a chance for a humanitarian truce in war-ravaged Sudan as he urged outside countries to exert leverage.
“Ninety-nine percent of our focus is this humanitarian truce and achieving that as soon as possible,” Rubio told a news conference.
“And we think that the new year and the upcoming holidays are a great opportunity for both sides to agree to that, and we’re really pushing very hard on that regard,” he said.
Sudan has been devastated since the army and rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) went to war in April 2023, with tens of thousands of people killed, millions displaced and widespread abuses and hunger.
Rubio said both sides have violated commitments as he voiced alarm at new reports of humanitarian convoys being struck.
“What’s happening there is horrifying. It’s atrocious,” he said.
“One day the story of what’s actually happened there is going to be known, and everyone involved is going to look bad.”
“Someone is allowing it to be shipped in, and someone is actually shipping it. So we’ve had the right and appropriate conversations with all sides of this conflict,” he said.
“We’re hopeful that we can make some progress on this, but we know that in order to make progress on this, it will require outside actors to use their leverage,” Rubio concluded.
