Polio vaccination campaign to resume in northern Gaza
· RTE.ieThe World Health Organization said that the necessary second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza would finally begin tomorrow, after Israeli bombing halted the drive.
The announcement that the final phase of polio vaccination can go ahead came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel to facilitate a quick completion of the campaign.
The vaccination drive began on 1 September after the besieged Palestinian territory confirmed its first case of polio in 25 years.
A first round of inoculation was completed across Gaza and the second round - essential to build up immunity - began as scheduled on 14 October, first in central Gaza, then the south, aided by so-called humanitarian pauses in the fighting.
But the WHO postponed the final four-day phase in the north, which was set to begin on 23 October, due to "intense bombardment" making the conditions on the ground "impossible".
Israel launched a major air and ground assault in northern Gaza last month, saying it wanted to stop Hamas militants regrouping there.
119,000 children left waiting
"Polio vaccination in northern Gaza is ready to resume tomorrow," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
"We are assured of the necessary humanitarian pause in Gaza City to conduct the campaign.
"Unfortunately, the area covered is substantially reduced compared to the first round of vaccination, which will leave some children unprotected and at higher risk of infection."
In its original reasoning for postponing vaccinations in the north, the UN health agency said the approved area for humanitarian pauses had been cut down to Gaza City alone, meaning many children would have missed their second dose.
This would "seriously jeopardise efforts to stop the transmission of poliovirus in Gaza", it had said.Some 119,000 children in the north are awaiting their second dose, while 452,000 have been vaccinated in central and southern Gaza.
The WHO says a minimum of two separate doses of oral vaccine are needed to interrupt poliovirus transmission, requiring 90% of all children aged under ten to be vaccinated in a given community.
Typically spread through sewage and contaminated water, poliovirus is highly infectious.
It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal, mainly affecting children under the age of five.
At least 10 dead in Israeli strike on school
At least ten Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli strike targeting the entrance of a school sheltering displaced people in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, medics have told Reuters.
It comes as 47 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured, most of them children and women, in overnight Israeli bombardment of central Gaza, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The attacks occurred in the city of Deir Al-Balah, the Nuseirat camp and the town of Al-Zawayda, it said.
The Israeli military said its troops had identified and eliminated "several armed terrorists" in central Gaza and had eliminated "dozens of terrorists" in targeted raids in northern Gaza's Jabalia area.
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities say.
At least 46 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza yesterday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave's health officials said.
Hospitals struck by Israeli forces
Israel's military has accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said "dozens of terrorists" have been hiding there. Health officials and Hamas deny the assertion.
The health ministry in Gaza called for all international bodies "to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation".
WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said that "because of the attacks", the hospital's malnutrition stabilisation centre had closed, meaning there was no such facility remaining in the north.
"Before that occurred, we were seeing an increasing number, month on month, of children with severe acute malnutrition who were requiring treatment," she told a media briefing.
"We've not really seen any food aid enter north Gaza since 2 October. People are running out of ways to cope. The food systems have collapsed and the opportunity to care for those who are at the most critical stage is not there any more," she said.
"Over 86% of the population across Gaza are experiencing high levels of food insecurity.
"It's always the children who suffer the most."
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said yesterday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained last Saturday by Israeli forces.
It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who "are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care".