High turnout as Gaza polio vaccination drive nears end

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More than four fifths of an estimated 640,000 children under the age of 10 in Gaza have received their first polio vaccination under a UN-led campaign that began on September 1, showing the concern among parents for protecting their children against the disease even at the height of war, a doctor told The National.

“There is significant awareness among parents, as evidenced by the large number of families who have vaccinated their children,” Gazan psychologist Dr Yousef Awadallah said.

After covering central and southern Gaza, the campaign began its final round of vaccinations in the north on Tuesday. They will continue until Thursday, according to the World Health Organisation, with the vaccines are given during localised “humanitarian pauses” in fighting.

The campaign was organised after a 10-month-old child became paralysed in his leg after contracting polio last month – the first case in 25 years since the disease was declared eradicated in the occupied Palestinian territories.

But despite the turnout to vaccinate their children, parents in Gaza harbour doubts about the sincerity of the international community's concern for their well-being, Dr Awadallah said.

“I'm not convinced that the world is interested in protecting my son from this disease, while they're not interested in protecting him from the harm that Israel is inflicting on him every minute,” said Mureed Shalail from Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

“To me, what's happening is a farce. If the world has ways to pressure Israel into allowing vaccinations and securing a truce for it, then the priority should be to stop the war and the slaughter of children in these horrific ways.”

An estimated 18,000 children are among the more than 41,000 people killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military offensive on the Palestinian enclave. The war began after Hamas militants from Gaza killed about 1,200 people and took about 240 others hostage in raids on southern Israel on October 7.

Warda Al Shobaki, 36, said her three children received the polio vaccine at the Sheikh Radwan Clinic on Wednesday as UN teams conducted a second day of vaccinations in the north.

“I felt how important it was for them to get this vaccine, especially since the disease is very serious, and they could get infected,” Ms Al Shobaki told The National.

Israeli air strikes have destroyed Gaza's water treatment and waste disposal facilities, leaving the population exposed to illness from unclean water and growing piles rubbish. Little has been done to solve this despite warning from medical experts and humanitarian groups that this was creating a fertile environment for the spread of communicable and otherwise preventable diseases.

Ms Al Shobaki said she was keenly aware that her children could easily become part of the war's statistics as Israel continues to conduct daily strikes across the territory, but felt she should do whatever she could to protect them from disease.

“Yes, death is everywhere around us, and the children could be killed by a rocket at any moment, but vaccinating my sons, Mahmoud and Ayham, and my daughter, Dina, was very important to me as a way to take precautions and avoid illness,” she said.

“I hope this war ends as soon as possible, so our children are spared from death, destruction, illness, and all the diseases that could harm their bodies and add to their suffering.”