The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says the school-turned-shelter in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp – where at least 22 Palestinians are reported to have been killed by an Israeli air strike yesterday – was supposed to be used today to administer polio vaccines.
The second of the two stages in rollout for the massive UN polio campaign is starting in central Gaza, which is where most residents are now living and where the first case of polio in two decades was recently discovered in an unvaccinated baby.
Local medics and UNRWA workers are leading the effort to give drops of the vaccine to 590,000 children aged under 10. The campaign is being organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Unicef.
UN officials are pressing for humanitarian pauses to be respected during the vaccination drive.
Last week, Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, told me that the “recent hostilities, specifically the evacuation orders in the north” were “not helpful for any humanitarian activity” – but specifically not for vaccinations in which parents bringing children and medics needed to feel safe.
“We’re concerned,” he said.
