UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Gaza humanitarian update

Amid bombardment in Gaza, UN aid teams resume polio vaccinations in north

UN aid teams prepared to enter northern Gaza at the weekend to resume a mass polio vaccination campaign despite the daily dangers from ongoing bombardment, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said on Friday.

Speaking to UN News from middle Gaza against a backdrop of intermittent explosions, UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer Louise Wateridge described increasingly dire conditions in the enclave, more than a year since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel sparked the war.

“Things are really intensifying here. The desperation is just everywhere,” she said. “Already my colleagues I've been speaking to, they just don't know what to do anymore, they don't know where to go, you might hear behind me now, there are continued bombardments going on.”

UNRWA’s efforts to help Gaza’s most vulnerable communities have continued as Israeli legislation passed this week threatens to shut it down. The move has been condemned by UN agencies and beyond, as supporters of the UN agency has reiterated its unique role across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

“I've sat here for 12 months telling people how every day it gets worse, every day it gets worse. Without UNRWA, that will continue,” Ms. Wateridge said. “I don't even want to imagine the reality on the ground if the largest aid operation in the Gaza Strip is prevented from doing their jobs, because at the moment they're doing everything they can to keep people going to keep people having food, basic medical supplies, you know, prevent disease. We're about to start the second round of polio again tomorrow in the north.”

The polio vaccination campaign in Gaza’s north – coordinated by UNRWA, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – aims to reach an estimated 119,000 children under 10 years old with a second dose of novel oral polio vaccine type 2. “However, achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints,” WHO said on Friday.

The campaign in northern Gaza follows two successful phases of the second round of vaccinations in central and southern Gaza, which reached 451,216 children – 96 per cent of the objective in these areas.

In the past few weeks, at least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from north Gaza towards Gaza City for their own safety, WHO said.

Some 15,000 children under 10 years old who remain in north Gaza towns including Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun “still remain inaccessible and will be missed during the campaign, compromising its effectiveness”, the UN health agency said. To interrupt poliovirus transmission, at least 90 per cent of all children must be vaccinated.

After more than a year of destruction, disease spread and death, UNRWA’s Ms. Wateridge said that “hopelessness is really the only word left for Gaza. There's nowhere for anyone to go. You know, 2.2 million people - you have to remind everybody - that they're trapped, there is no way out of the Gaza Strip, and this bombing just continues all day, all night.”

UN staff have also been heavily marked by the experience, the UNRWA spokesperson said, pointing out that morale is “very low. It's been one year where colleagues have been working, they've been putting their lives on the line and many have paid the ultimate price that many have lost their lives in this war they have been killed.”

Shutting down UNRWA would have a devastating impact on Gaza, Ms. Wateridge insisted, as the UN agency “knows the community and the community knows UNRWA. Without UNRWA here, it's impossible for other agencies to come in and do the vast amount of work that UNRWA does.”

Gaza humanitarian update - UNRWA

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