A local "humanitarian pause" allowed the launch of the emergency polio immunization campaign, with nearly 87,000 children vaccinated in central Gaza on the first day of the campaign on Sunday. Hundreds of thousands of young Palestinian children are on track to be vaccinated. Despite this, Israeli air and land bombardment continues throughout the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian deaths, injuries, maiming, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Area-specific humanitarian pauses from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. allowed the first round of the emergency polio immunization campaign to take place in central Gaza on September 1. Nearly 87,000 children were reached on the first day, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The UN-led mass polio vaccination campaign entered its second day in central Gaza on Monday, with further breaks in the fighting.
On Friday, WHO Representative to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) Richard Peeperkorn said the joint effort by the Gaza Ministry of Health, WHO, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and partners would be conducted in phases, focusing on one zone at a time - starting in central Gaza, then moving to the south and finally to the northern governorates.
Speaking from Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Peeperkorn told journalists in Geneva that Israel had agreed to a series of so-called humanitarian pauses.
“We want to emphasize without humanitarian pauses, the campaign’s delivery, which is already being implemented under incredibly complex and challenging circumstances, will not be possible,” Peeperkorn said.
He welcomed the area-specific humanitarian pauses during the campaign and appealed to all parties to “pause the fighting to allow children and their families to safely access health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccinations.”
The campaign will last three consecutive days in each zone, with a fourth day being added if needed. The second round of the campaign will aim to administer the second dose of the vaccine in four weeks.
Gaza's first case of polio in 25 years was reported two weeks ago. The 10-month-old unvaccinated child who contracted the virus reportedly developed paralysis of the lower left leg. Polio is highly contagious and spreads through contaminated water or sewage.
Health officials agree that the overcrowded, unsanitary conditions in which Gazans are forced to live create an environment in which the poliovirus thrives. According to the WHO, for every 200 children infected, one suffers irreversible paralysis. Of those paralyzed, 5 to 10 percent die when their respiratory muscles are immobilized.
Aid agencies warn that at least 50,000 children born in the last ten months of war are unlikely to have received any vaccinations, including polio, because the health system has collapsed. The overall goal of the immunization campaign is to reach more than 640,000 children under the age of 10 throughout Gaza in each of the two rounds.
According to WHO, 1.26 million doses of vaccine and 500 vaccine carriers have been delivered to Gaza, and an additional 400,000 doses are expected to arrive soon.
In its latest situation report, released on Monday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that insecurity and access restrictions continue to jeopardize humanitarian efforts.
On Friday, the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera) reported that an Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinians at the front of its aid convoy carrying food and fuel to the Emirati Red Crescent Hospital.
This follows an incident in which a World Food Programme (WFP) convoy was directly fired upon by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on August 28, resulting in the temporary suspension of staff movements. The two WFP staff members in the vehicle were unharmed.
According to WFP, a convoy of two clearly marked armored vehicles was returning from escorting a convoy of aid trucks when the incident occurred. The vehicle came under fire a few meters from an Israeli checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza bridge between central and northern Gaza.
“This is totally unacceptable and the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that have endangered the lives of WFP’s team in Gaza,” Cindy McCain, WFP executive director, said in a statement last week
“As last night’s events show, the current de-confliction system is failing, and this cannot go on any longer. I call on the Israeli authorities and all parties to the conflict to act immediately to ensure the safety and security of all aid workers in Gaza.”
According to OCHA, UN humanitarian agencies in Gaza have recorded 16 incidents in which UN vehicles have been hit since January 1.
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and responses are severely hampered by the continued destruction of water and sanitation facilities, restricted access, and limitations on the entry of vital resources and items, with the approaching rainy season expected to exacerbate the situation.
In August, the number of humanitarian missions and movements within Gaza denied access by Israeli authorities nearly doubled, according to OCHA.
Gaza health officials say more than 40,700 people have been killed and more than 94,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on the enclave since the war broke out in October. Among the confirmed dead are at least 294 aid workers, 216 UN staff, 885 health workers and 172 journalists.
But with thousands of bodies still unaccounted for, the actual death toll is likely to be much higher. More than 10,000 others are feared buried under the rubble in Gaza and are presumed dead.
According to the UN, some 1.9 million people - or 90 percent of the population - are internally displaced throughout Gaza, including people who have been repeatedly displaced - some as many as 10 or 20 times in recent months.
More than ten months into the Gaza war, civilians are crammed into an ever-shrinking space without adequate access to water, food, sanitation or health care. They are repeatedly uprooted by evacuation orders, which also disrupt the aid centers that are supposed to help them.
Israel issued at least 16 separate evacuation orders to Gaza residents in August, displacing more than a quarter of a million Palestinians.
More than 88 percent of the Gaza Strip has been placed under evacuation orders or declared a "no-go zone" by Israeli security forces, confining up to 1.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) to about 11 percent of the tiny territory.
The entire population of the Gaza Strip is experiencing acute hunger and is at risk of famine. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report for Gaza shows that 96 percent of the population faces acute food insecurity at crisis level or worse, with nearly half a million people in catastrophic conditions.
For more than ten months, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza, with people dying from widespread violence, disease and starvation. Leading UN officials have called the situation in Gaza "apocalyptic," "hell on earth," "beyond catastrophic," and said that the humanitarian community is "running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza".
Briefing the UN Security Council on Thursday, the Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Joyce Msuya, highlighted the struggle of people to find shelter and other basic supplies while crammed into a small area of the Gaza Strip.
She stressed that the situation in Gaza is "beyond desperate.
"Civilians are hungry. They are thirsty. They are sick. They are homeless. They have been pushed beyond the limits of endurance - beyond what any human being should bear," Msuya said, urging the Security Council and all Member States to act "in the face of this unconscionable human suffering."
“What we have witnessed over the past 11 months – and continue to witness – calls into question the world’s commitment to the international legal order that was designed to prevent these tragedies. It forces us to ask: what has become of our basic sense of humanity?”
In a statement on Monday, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, strongly condemned the appalling civilian death toll in Gaza.
“Today, I returned to Gaza and witnessed firsthand the catastrophic impact of the hostilities. The scale of destruction is immense, the humanitarian needs are colossal and soaring, and civilians continue to bear the brunt of this conflict,” he said.
“The ongoing conflict has destroyed the lives of countless families. It must stop.”
Wennesland, who visited a polio vaccination center, also welcomed the humanitarian pauses to allow vaccination campaigns to take place.
“During my visit, I met with the heads of UN agencies and our dedicated staff working tirelessly in extremely challenging conditions. Their commitment and bravery in providing critical support to those in need is truly commendable,” he said.
As the carnage in Gaza continues, there is mounting evidence that Israeli government and military officials are responsible for widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the enclave.
In April, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the resolution also urged all states “to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel.”
Despite this, Israel's closest allies - including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom - have failed to stop the fighting and continue to provide political and military support for Israel's war in Gaza, which is causing immense loss of civilian life and untold suffering.
On Monday, the British government said it would suspend some arms exports to Israel because they could be used to violate international law, but stopped short of halting all arms exports.