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Amal Jasser sits in a makeshift tent in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, with her three young children – Mohammed, Ayman and Saba – huddled beside her. “They missed their second dose of the polio vaccine,” Ms Jasser says. “That second dose is essential. Without it, the first dose loses its power.”
Like tens of thousands of Gazan families, Ms Jasser's story since the war in the Palestinian enclave began is one of displacement, deprivation and, now, the looming threat of disease.
According to the enclave's Health Ministry, more than 600,000 children in Gaza are at risk of contracting polio as Israeli authorities continue to block the entry of vaccines into the besieged enclave. The blockade imposed in early March, which also prevents the delivery of food, water and medical supplies, is threatening to reverse months of progress in Gaza’s polio vaccination campaign.
Israel agreed late last year to pauses in its war against Hamas to allow UN and other health workers to launch a polio vaccination campaign, weeks after an 11-month-old boy in central Gaza became the first confirmed case of the disease since it was declared eradicated in the occupied Palestinian territories 25 years earlier.
The first round of vaccinations in September, which aimed to reach 640,000 children aged 10 and below, was declared largely successful. It was followed by a second round the following month, and a third round in February.
But plans to carry out the fourth phase of the campaign have been suspended after Israel imposed its total blockade on March 2.
“We are on the brink of a health disaster,” Dr Khalil Al Daqran, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, told The National. “The occupation authorities have been preventing the entry of vaccines, and international organisations so far haven’t been able to pressure them to reverse the decision. This isn’t just an interruption of a campaign, it’s the undoing of years of preventive work.”
Dr Al Daqran said the health system itself, already crippled by the war, was being systematically paralysed by Israel's blockade on aid. “Children are going without immunisations. Medications and supplies are dwindling. Our ability to treat the injured and control disease outbreaks is vanishing.”
Among those most affected are the hundreds of thousands of displaced families living in tents in Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and in the north.
Mohammed Abu Shaar, whose family is sheltering in Al Mawasi, Khan Younis, described how he lost track of everything, his children's vaccination schedule included, after fleeing renewed Israeli attacks on Rafah last month.
“I went two weeks after we fled to ask about vaccines,” Mr Abu Shaar, 37, told The National. “They told me there weren’t any. Israel has blocked them since the crossings were shut. It’s a crime on top of everything else.
“They say they block food and water to keep it from Hamas, but what’s their excuse for vaccines? There’s no justification for denying children medicine.”
Polio, a virus that can cause irreversible paralysis and death, has been largely eradicated in many parts of the world thanks to mass vaccination programmes. In war zones, however, where sanitation collapses and access to health care disappears, the disease can quickly re-emerge.
“Gaza’s children are living in conditions that make them even more vulnerable,” Dr Al Daqran said. “Contaminated water, repeated displacement and malnutrition have created a perfect storm.”
Ms Jasser's family returned home to Beit Lahia during a brief ceasefire late last year, hoping to find working health centres. “The hospitals were just starting to function again. We were waiting for the vaccines to come,” she said. “Then Israel closed the crossings again. Our children’s protection vanished with it.”
While the World Health Organisation and other agencies have called for unimpeded humanitarian access, none have yet been able to force Israel’s hand. The continuing siege has strangled Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure, already weakened by years of blockade and more than 18 months of war.
“The world needs to understand,” Ms Jasser said. “We’re not just dying from bombs. We’re dying slowly from everything else that’s being denied us, like vaccines that should be a basic right.”
International humanitarian law guarantees civilians access to medical care during conflict. Denying vaccines, particularly for children, is considered a violation of these principles. Yet for Gaza’s residents, these protections remain theoretical.
“Every child who misses a vaccine dose is a symbol of this injustice,” Dr Al Daqran said. “This is a war not just on people, but on their future.”
As temperatures rise and summer approaches, typically a peak season for waterborne diseases and virus transmission, the risk of a full-blown health crisis grows. Without immediate action to restore the supply of vaccines, health officials fear the worst.
And for parents like Ms Jasser, the clock is ticking. “How do you protect your child from something you can’t even see, when even the medicine meant to save them is being kept out?"
