"Beyond Catastrophic": U.N. Issues Dire Warning on Gaza as Israel Hinders Polio Vaccination Drive

[Uncle Joe]

The United Nations is warning the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains "beyond catastrophic" as more than 1 million Palestinians in Gaza did not receive any food rations in August amid Israel's relentless assault. Israel's 11-month campaign has killed more than 15,000 children and enabled the besieged territory's first polio outbreak in a quarter-century. INARA founder Arwa Damon just got back from spending two weeks in Gaza, where the nonprofit currently provides medical and mental healthcare to Palestinian children. "Israel has decimated every single aspect of any sort of infrastructure within the Gaza Strip, from sewage to water to electricity to you name it," says Damon, who reports that humanitarian assistance has diminished significantly while displaced Palestinians play a "macabre, dark, twisted game" of trying to escape constant Israeli bombing.

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[no_hypocrisy]

1. Israel is being short-sighted on several levels.

The Palestinians will contract and suffer from polio.

But viruses being viruses, many in Israel will contract the same disease as many Orthodox Jews don't believe in vaccines. Diseases don't recognize borders.

A humanitarian crisis is in the making.

[AloeVera]

6. The destruction of Gaza's health-care and sanitationsystem has come back to haunt Israel.

Gaza’s recently confirmed polio outbreak is a barometer of the catastrophic public health conditions created by the Israeli military—but what many Israelis don’t realize is that the systematic assault by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on health care and public health infrastructure in Gaza has now come back to haunt them.

It has placed hundreds of thousands of Israelis at risk of contracting an ancient virus that strikes suddenly, paralyzing limbs and even sometimes lungs. It is so contagious that each afflicted person means several hundred others are simultaneously and invisibly spreading this incurable disease.

Although polio has been eradicated in most developed nations, Israel has particular reason to be concerned about the disease. The country has at least 175,000 vulnerable children—the offspring of the ultra-Orthodox, or haredim, who are notorious for their opposition to vaccinations.

Because the haredim comprise 17 percent of Israel’s Jews and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs their support to remain in power, his government has exempted hundreds of thousands of haredim from Israel’s immunization program against polio as well as measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis and HPV, influenza, and COVID-19—despite the threat to domestic and global health from these vaccine-preventable diseases.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/08/30/gaza-polio-israel-ceasefire-orthodox-vaccine-who-netanyahu/

IDF soldiers were vaccinated in July but can still be vectors and carry the disease back home. Ultra-chlorination in Haredim communities provides some protection. Of course Palestinians have no such protection, as even chlorine tabs are withheld by Israel and all their water treatment plants have been destroyed.

Also alarming is that, even with vaccination, the disease can still spread in a population weakened by prolonged starvation and immuno-suppression from disease.

You are right, I fear - Palestinians will die from this, almost all children. As for a humanitarian crisis, I would say it's not "in the making" - it's 11-months old and getting immeasurably worse. Unless your lens is strictly on Israel of course, then yes, it's in the making.

[2naSalit]

2. But...

By all means, let's not call it what it really is so we don't upset those who will scream with wails of victimization because we can't see that they, like some we know here, may be offended.

[hlthe2b]

3. Time for US to enlist WHO, UK, Canada, European Union to force an extended humanitarian cease-fire/truce

to allow international public health workers to get this polio epidemic under control and to provide needed medical care to all suffering traumatic injuries and general medical care to all who need it.

I am done with the excuses. We are clearly unable to use the delay of weaponry and other support to Israel as leverage, but Israel gets aid and buys munitions from countries other than the US. Netanyahu must go. If he wants to remain, enough of his self-serving harm--to Israelis now and in the future. Allowing polio to do what guns have not to the civilians of Gaza is the way to ensure Israel will face a very uncertain (and likely violent) future. It tells the world that he does not care about the rest of the world's well-being either.

[AloeVera]

4. When is it going to be ENOUGH??

No food rations for a month for half the population? The stunting of surviving children is going to be through the roof. This in itself is an unspeakable crime.

Hindering polio vaccinations, with polio already present? WTAF.

Trying to evade bombs for 11 months? No child in Gaza will be without PTSD.

The genocidal intent is clear and it's beyond disgusting that this barbaric inhumanity is allowed to go on.

[Beastly Boy]

5. Meanwhile, in the world beyond the Democracy Now bubble:

September 3:

Gaza: UN humanitarians ahead of polio vaccination target

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that 161,030 children under 10 have been vaccinated in central Gaza during the first two days of the UN-led mass vaccination campaign, surpassing the initial target of 156,000. The figure amounts to around a quarter of the total population they aim to reach - some 640,000 children.

“We think that we will need another day tomorrow to actually wrap-up the central zone completely,” said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Speaking from Gaza, he explained that day three of the campaign was continuing during the eight-hour daily pauses agreed by the Israeli military and Hamas fighters.

Each “humanitarian pause” is meant to last from 06:00 until 15:00 local time, with the possibility of adding an extra day if required.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1153851

September 6:

Gaza: 160,000 more children vaccinated against polio in southern Gaza

UN agencies and partners in the Strip will continue to vaccinate “as many Gazan children as possible” during the agreed humanitarian pauses, before moving to the north of the war-shattered enclave, UNRWA added.

Thousands of families visited health centers to get their doses from UN medical teams, UNRWA reported. In southern Gaza, more than 152,000 children were vaccinated in Khan Younis city, nearly 8,800 in Rafah and another 1,000 elsewhere in the south.

The promising development follows the successful completion of the first phase of the vaccination campaign in central Gaza earlier this week, which saw more than 187,000 children under 10 receive protection from polio. To date, combined coverage for central and southern Gaza now stands at 354,786 children.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1154016