Israel Agrees To Phased Pauses In Gaza Fighting To Allow Polio Vaccination

It appears Israel has given into US and international pressure, including from global health organizations, to allow for a phased ‘pause’ it its military campaign in Gaza, in order to allow health workers to begin efforts to vaccinate over 600,000 of the Gaza Strip’s children.

Israel’s IDF military said it will start with a three-day pause in fighting only in central Gaza “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach the medical centers where the vaccinations will be administered.”

But then the pause will move to southern Gaza, and after that the north, according to published statements. Depending on its initial success it will move from zone to zone, but practical implementation in an intense war zone remains to be seen.

Polio vaccines arriving in the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing, via i24 News

The UN and World Health Organization (WHO) have over 2,000 health workers ready to conduct a mass vaccination campaign, and the WHO has especially stepped up the pressure of late for this to happen.

The initiative is expected to go into full swing by Sunday:

An Israeli official confirmed to CNN that polio vaccinations will begin in Gaza on September 1. Each phase of the vaccination campaign is expected to take around seven hours, and during those hours, the vaccines will be able enter the area on “pause” and be distributed.

Presumably this will be aided by local Gazan health workers as well, given the huge numbers of children who will have to get vaccinated. 

Earlier this week, the Gaza Health Ministry  said that an 10-month-old infant in the central city of Deir al-Balah “who has not received any polio vaccine dose” tested positive for the virus. The baby has since reportedly been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, which can be fatal. The ministry has since indicated that “a number of children” have presented with symptoms consistent with polio.

But given that an active war is on, and many families have already been displaced, the UN and WHO fears that many Palestinians who need it won’t get the vaccine.

“If you listen to the Palestinians on the ground, … they’re saying they’re terrified of being displaced because time and time again – it’s been documented – Israel orders the Palestinians to go to a particular location. They declare it a safe zone, and then they bomb it,” an Al Jazeera correspondent explained.

“My guess is Palestinians will be scared to even go [to] vaccinate their children,” he added.

There are reports that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appealed directly to the Netanyahu government to allow for the polio pause in fighting. However, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is already pushing an expanse in the IDF’s operations in Gaza.