Ceasefire needed to avert mass polio outbreak in Gaza

Maureen Clare Murphy Rights and Accountability 21 August 2024

A Palestinian child is brought in for vaccinations at a health center in al-Zawaida, central Gaza Strip, on 25 July.

Omar Ashtawy APA images

Aid agencies and medical professionals are calling for a ceasefire to administer the polio vaccine to 640,000 children under the age of 10 in Gaza after a case was confirmed in the territory.

Last week, the UN children’s fund UNICEF and the World Health Organization requested “humanitarian pauses … for seven days” to allow for two rounds of polio vaccinations in Gaza.

WHO has approved the release of 1.6 million doses of the polio vaccine to Gaza and UNICEF is coordinating the delivery of the vaccines to the territory, according to the UN secretary-general.

But “without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible,” the two UN agencies said.

“Worryingly, three children presenting with suspected acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), a common symptom of polio, have since been reported in the Gaza Strip,” UNICEF and WHO added.

Those cases were reported by the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza in late July “and samples were sent to Jordan for testing,” according to UN News.

On Friday, the health ministry confirmed the first case of polio in the territory since the virus was detected in wastewater samples in July.

The ministry said last Friday that traces of the polio virus were found in a 10-month-old child in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, who had not yet received a vaccination.

It is the first case of polio in Gaza in 25 years, CNN reported. The highly contagious disease mainly affects young children and serious cases can lead to permanent paralysis and death.

“At least 50,000 children born during the past 10 months of hostilities are highly unlikely to have received any immunizations due to the collapsed health system,” dozens of international aid groups and medical professionals stated on Tuesday.

Older children have meanwhile had “their regular vaccine schedules disrupted or halted by violence and displacement,” the aid groups and doctors added.

The health ministry in Gaza said that it would work with UNICEF to vaccinate children under the age of 10. But it warned that the campaign “will not be enough without a radical solution to the problems of sanitation and accumulation of waste among the tents for the displaced.”

The World Health Organization has said that with most sewage pumps destroyed and no wastewater plants currently in operation, the catastrophic situation in Gaza provides a “perfect breeding ground” for polio.

The polio virus “spreads in open sewage,” according to Ben Majekodunmi, the chief of staff of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.

Polio had been eradicated in Gaza but has reemerged as vaccine rates drop during the genocide.

The public health catastrophe being faced by Palestinians in Gaza is a predictable if not intentional outcome of Israel’s actions.

Giora Eiland, a former Israeli military operations chief and head of the National Security Council who is currently serving as an adviser to defense minister Yoav Gallant, has called for the deprivation of life essentials in Gaza as a means of biological warfare.

Experts project that the number of Palestinians in Gaza who die as a result of the breakout of epidemics could be as many if not more than those killed directly by Israeli fire.

Israel’s actions suggest a “plan to make Gaza uninhabitable and drive Palestinians out, an outcome that senior Israeli ministers – whose support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to remain in power – continue to promote,” as Annie Sparrow and Kenneth Roth stated in Foreign Policy in February.

No “luxury of time” for Gaza’s children

Now that polio is confirmed in Gaza, “children do not have the luxury of time,” said Jeremy Stoner, a regional director for Save the Children.

A polio vaccine campaign must reach at least 95 percent of targeted children to be effective, according to the aid groups and doctors.

“This cannot happen in an active war zone,” they said.

With some 86 percent of Gaza’s territory coming under Israeli military evacuation orders since October – meaning that it has declared those areas combat zones – most of the tiny coastal enclave is an arena of ongoing hostilities.

While downplaying the significance of the detection of polio virus in Gaza wastewater, Israel claims that it will facilitate the transfer of polio vaccines to the territory. But healthcare practitioners say that a ceasefire is needed to safely distribute and administer the doses to children.

António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said that the vaccination campaign would involve more than 700 teams at hospitals and health centers and 300 community outreach teams in Gaza.

It would require “reliable internet and phone services to inform communities about the campaign,” Guterres added, as well as an “increase in the amount of cash allowed into Gaza to pay health workers.”

“The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” Guterres said.

US pressuring Hamas to accept “reversal” of agreement

Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected a ceasefire, insisting on “total victory” in Gaza – in other words, open-ended war.

US-led negotiations for an exchange of captives and an end to the war have only served to prolong Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, undermining the implementation of legally binding orders from the UN Security Council and World Court for a ceasefire and an end to genocidal acts.

On Monday, US President Joe Biden said that Hamas was “backing off” from an agreement that Israel was amenable to.

Hamas rejected Biden’s claim, saying that it was keen to end the war in Gaza.

The resistance group accused Washington of acquiescing to Israel and attempting “to liquidate our national cause.”

Hamas added that the most recent proposal it received was a reversal from what it agreed to in early July.

On Sunday, Hamas said that the new proposal represents a capitulation to Netanyahu’s “rejection of a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and his insistence on continuing to occupy the ‘Netzarim corridor’ area, the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor” – key points by which Israel is maintaining control over the territory.

Diplomats familiar with the proposal told The Washington Post that there are doubts that Israel will see through its obligation to negotiate for a permanent ceasefire after an exchange of captives in the first stage of a three-phase deal proposed by the US.

Israel will presumably resume its military offensive once it has secured its remaining captives in Gaza.

“There are no guarantees or commitments to stop the war after implementing the first phase of the agreement,” Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri told The Washington Post. “Why would we make any agreement that will not lead to stopping the war?”

Hamas has meanwhile accused Washington of complicity in Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza by linking increased humanitarian aid to a ceasefire.

The group pointed to the closure of the Rafah crossing, which has been shut for more than 100 consecutive days, preventing medical delegations and supplies from entering Gaza.

Israel, which has shut down most of Gaza’s crossings, claims to be facilitating the transfer of humanitarian assistance to the territory and blames the UN for failing to effectively distribute aid.

Humanitarian agencies say that Israel is primarily responsible for creating the conditions that not only increase need among Palestinians but make it impossible for aid workers to safely attempt to meet those needs.

Nearly 300 humanitarian workers are known to have been killed during Israel’s offensive in Gaza. More than 200 belonged to UNRWA.

Around 200 UNRWA facilities have been damaged or destroyed, killing more than 560 Palestinians sheltering under the protection of the UN flag.

Humanitarian groups say this grim reality underscores the urgent need for a ceasefire and freedom of movement to make a polio vaccine campaign possible.

“Specialist refrigerated trucks needed to safely transport vaccines have been repeatedly rejected from entry, leaving thousands of children at risk,” according to the aid groups and doctors calling for a ceasefire to stop the spread of polio.

“An entire generation is at risk of infection, and hundreds of children face paralysis by a highly communicable disease that can be prevented with a simple vaccine,” according to Save the Children’s Jeremy Stoner.

Nahed Abu Iyada, a field officer with the anti-poverty group CARE International, said that people in Gaza “are facing a public health disaster that will spread and endanger children across the region and beyond.”

More than 100 days of closure of Rafah crossing

The Gaza media office said last week that Israel’s prolonged closure of the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt had resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 patients who needed medical treatment abroad.

Israel closed the Rafah crossing on the eve of its ground offensive in the area, where most of Gaza’s population, which stood at 2.3 million Palestinians last October, had concentrated after being displaced from other parts of the territory.

More than 12,000 injured people and 14,000 ill patients require treatment unavailable in Gaza, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

People who die from lack of adequate medical treatment are not reflected in the official death toll of more than 40,000 people in Gaza since 7 October.

Israel has targeted hospitals and medical workers during its 10-month military offensive in Gaza, further undermining the ability of local facilities to adequately treat ill and injured patients as need for care increases due to the war and siege.

Hospitals have also been hampered by Israel cutting off the supply of electricity and fuel to Gaza. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this week that fuel shortages were forcing hospitals “to postpone critical surgeries and threaten to halt ambulances, particularly in northern Gaza.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Sunday that due to the fuel shortage, its ambulances will soon be grounded and suspend its medical clinics and relief services, which are already “operating at minimal capacity.”

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said earlier this month that Israel was deliberately preventing the entry of medical supplies into Gaza, “including medical devices and essential medicines … resulting in a high death toll there.”

The group called for “immediate action … to lift Israel’s blockade” to save the lives of sick and injured people and rebuild the health system in Gaza.

Israel is also blocking the entry of cleaning and personal hygiene products into Gaza, according to Euro-Med Monitor, “exacerbating the catastrophic health crisis that Israel has caused there.”

“This crisis has been made worse by the population’s forced, widespread and repeatedly occurring displacement” into overcrowded shelters lacking basic infrastructure, the rights group added.

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gcw919 replied on

I believe I read a few weeks ago that the IOF are rapidly pursuing having their troops in Gaza immunized against polio. I wonder if we, the taxpaying American chumps, are paying for this? Re the children of Gaza, no need to hurry.

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Maureen Clare Murphy

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Maureen Clare Murphy is senior editor of The Electronic Intifada.