A new phase of a United Nations-led polio vaccination campaign will start on Saturday in northern Gaza Strip after being postponed from October 23, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post on Friday.
Coordinated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the WHO and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the vaccination campaign aims to reach an estimated 119,000 children under 10 years old with a second dose of novel oral polio vaccine type 2.
However, achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints, according to the WHO.
A humanitarian pause from the relentless Israeli strikes, which is necessary to resume the campaign, has been assured. However, the area of the pause has been substantially reduced compared to the first round of vaccination in northern Gaza, which was conducted in September this year. It is now limited to just Gaza City, the WHO said.
Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) also confirmed on Friday the resumption of the campaign, saying that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children will receive the doses between 06:00 and 16:00 each day from Saturday to Monday.
The originally planned vaccination campaign was delayed due to conditions such as lack of access and assured, comprehensive humanitarian pauses, intense Israeli bombardment, and mass evacuation orders, according to the UN.
Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer of the UNRWA, said on Friday that UN aid teams are preparing to enter northern Gaza despite the dangers from Israel's ongoing military operation.
Speaking against a backdrop of intermittent explosions in central Gaza, Wateridge described increasingly dire conditions in the enclave, more than a year since the conflict erupted.
"Things are really intensifying here. The desperation is just everywhere. I mean, the people you speak to, already my colleagues I've been speaking to, they just don't know what to do anymore, they don't know where to go. You might hear behind me now, there are continued bombardments going on," she said.
UNRWA's efforts to help Gaza's most vulnerable communities have continued as the Israeli parliament on Monday passed a legislation prohibiting the UN agency from operating in the strip. Israel's move has been condemned by UN agencies and beyond, as supporters of the UNRWA have reiterated its unique role across the occupied Palestinian territories.
"I don't even want to imagine the reality on the ground if the largest aid operation in the Gaza Strip is prevented from doing their jobs, because at the moment they're doing everything they can to keep people going, to keep people having food, basic medical supplies, prevent disease. We're about to start the second round of polio again tomorrow in the north," Wateridge said.
The campaign in northern Gaza follows two successful phases of the second round of vaccinations in central and southern Gaza, which reached around 451,200 children, or 96 percent of the objective, in these areas.
In the past few weeks, at least 100,000 Palestinians have been forced by Israel to evacuate from northern Gaza towards Gaza City, WHO said.
Some 15,000 children under 10 years old who remain in northern Gaza including Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun are still inaccessible and will be missed during the campaign, compromising its effectiveness, the WHO said. To interrupt poliovirus transmission, at least 90 percent of all children must be vaccinated.
UN staff have also suffered huge losses in the persistent violence, with more than 190 workers killed since last October, the global organization said.
"The morale at the moment, as you can imagine for the United Nations -- not just UNRWA -- it's very low. It's been one year where colleagues have been working, they've been putting their lives on the line, and many have paid the ultimate price, that many have lost their lives in this war -- they have been killed," Wateridge said.
Polio vaccination campaign resumes in northern Gaza
