UN says vaccinating Gaza children against polio impossible ‘under a sky full of bombs’

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has once again pleaded for a humanitarian pause in the besieged Gaza Strip for a mass polio vaccination campaign.  

In a Wednesday post on X, UNRWA said it cannot do its job “under a sky full of bombs and strikes.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently warned of a high risk of the polio virus spreading across the Israeli-bombarded Palestinian region due to the poor sanitary conditions. 

The WHO has said if the outbreak happens in Gaza, it may spill over internationally at a very high rate.

Some 1.2 million vaccines have arrived in Gaza. The UN has said it needs a weeklong pause to vaccinate all children. 

WHO is joined in the vaccination effort by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the UNRWA Relief and other partners. The aim is to vaccinate virtually 640,000 children under the age of 10 with two doses each.

The organizations have emphasized that a ceasefire — what they are calling a “polio pause” — is crucial.

On Tuesday, the foreign policy chief of the European Union Josep Borrell called for an immediate three-day ceasefire in Gaza to allow children to be vaccinated against poliovirus.

He said in a message on X that the disease, which can cause deformities and paralysis, “threatens all children in Gaza, already weakened by displacement, deprivation & malnourished.”

Lack of Gaza ceasefire hurting polio vaccination campaign: WHO

Children under five are most at risk from the viral disease, most notably infants under two, since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by the conflict.

The UN agencies have warned that without a ceasefire, children in Gaza will continue to become paralyzed, and the deadly disease will spread to the broader region and beyond.

The Gaza Health Ministry has urged “international organizations to work and pressure the occupying authorities to stop the continuous aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip so that medical teams can vaccinate children and prevent the spread of the polio virus.”

Aid groups have called for seven days to safely administer the vaccines.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas said in a statement on August 16 that it supports a ceasefire for a polio vaccination.

Vicious Israeli propaganda against vaccination campaign 

Some media outlets affiliated with the Israeli regime have launched a vicious propaganda against the UN vaccination campaign in Gaza.  

Several news stories have appeared online in the Israeli-occupied territories and the United States, quoting some Israeli scientists falsely asserting that the polio vaccine due to be used in Gaza is “experimental”.

During his daily media briefing from New York on Tuesday, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric noted that there had been misinformation surrounding the vaccine.

“I want to make the following clear: the safest and most effective way to protect children against the polio virus, regardless of the variant, is to vaccinate them,” he said. 

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