Sunday, November 03, 2024

Vaccination centre and aid official’s car bombarded in Gaza, says UN

Julian Borger in Jerusalem
THE GUARDIAN
Sun 3 November 2024 

The second round of a vaccination campaign to protect children from polio began this weekend in Gaza City.Photograph: Mahmoud Issa/SOPA Images/Rex/Shutterstock


A polio vaccination centre and the car of a UN aid official involved in this weekend’s vaccination campaign came under fire despite a promised “humanitarian pause” in Israeli bombardment, the UN has said.

Catherine Russell, the executive director of the UN child support and protection agency, Unicef, said: “At least three children were reportedly injured by another attack in the proximity of a vaccination clinic in Sheikh Radwan while a polio vaccination campaign was under way.”

She added that the personal car of a Unicef employee working on the polio vaccine campaign “came under fire by what we believe to be a quadcopter.


Related: ‘Death is everywhere’: fears grow that Israel plans to seize land in Gaza

“The car was damaged. Fortunately, the staff member was not injured. But she has been left deeply shaken,” Russell wrote. She added that in the previous 48-hour period, more than 50 children had reportedly been killed in the Jabaliya refugee camp, a focus of Israeli military operations over the past month.

“The attacks on Jabaliya, the vaccination clinic and the Unicef staff member are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip,” Russell said.

“Taken alongside the horrific level of child deaths in north Gaza from other attacks, these most recent events combine to write yet another dark chapter in one of the darkest periods of this terrible war.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied responsibility for the reported attack on Sheikh Radwan, which is in northern Gaza to the west of the Jabaliya camp.

“We are aware of a claim about the harm to Palestinian civilians at the Sheikh Radwan vaccination centre in the northern Gaza Strip. Contrary to what was claimed, a preliminary investigation reveals that there was no strike by IDF forces in the area at the time in question,” an IDF statement said.

The weekend’s inoculation campaign was intended to give more than 100,000 Palestinian children under the age of 10 a second dose of polio vaccine, made necessary by an outbreak of the virus reported in July. It had been postponed in late October because of Israeli bombardment.

This weekend, the IDF agreed to suspend its strikes to allow the vaccinations to go ahead in northern Gaza except in the besieged areas in the northern governorate: Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya.

Approximately 15,000 children under 10 are estimated to be in the excluded area and therefore will not receive the inoculation, threatening the effectiveness of the vaccination campaign, which requires at least 90% of all children in every district to be vaccinated to be sure of stopping the spread of the polio virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that 58,604 children had been vaccinated on Saturday, the first day of the campaign. The WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described the reported strike on the Sheikh Radwan clinic as “extremely concerning”, saying it had happened “while parents were bringing their children to the life-saving polio vaccination in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed to allow vaccination to proceed”.

“A WHO team was at the site just before,” Ghebreyesus said on the X social media platform. “This attack, during humanitarian pause, jeopardises the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination. These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected.”

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited Israel’s northern border with Lebanon on Sunday, where he said that Hezbollah must be pushed back beyond the Litani River, with or without a ceasefire deal in place, and that the Iran-backed group must be prevented from re-arming.

“With or without an agreement, the key to returning our (evacuated) residents in the north safely to their homes is to keep back Hezbollah beyond the Litani, to strike its every attempt to rearm, and to respond forcefully against all action against us,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the border. The river is roughly 30km (20 miles) inside Lebanon from the border with Israel.

The Israeli army said Hezbollah had fired about 60 rockets across the Lebanese border on Sunday, some aimed at the occupied Golan Heights, others at the western Galilee area.

The IDF said most of the projectiles were intercepted and those that got through Israeli defences fell in open areas, causing no casualties on this occasion. The IDF, meanwhile, issued evacuation warnings to Lebanese residents in some areas of the ancient city of Baalbek and said that buildings being used by Hezbollah militants would be targeted imminently.

The death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon has now climbed to 2,897 and the number of injured to 13,150 since October 2023, including 30 dead and 183 injured in the past 24 hours, the Lebanese health ministry said.


Over 50 children reportedly killed in Gaza as violence disrupts polio vaccination campaign

Euronews
Sun 3 November 2024 

In the past 48 hours, over 50 children have reportedly been killed in Jabalia, northern Gaza, according to UN children’s agency.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said on Sunday that the strikes have targeted two residential buildings, sheltering hundreds of people in the last 2 days.

"This has already been a deadly weekend of attacks in North Gaza," Russell said in a statement.

Palestinian officials have also reported that an Israeli drone strike hit a clinic in the region, where children were receiving polio vaccinations, injuring six people, including four children.

The Israeli military denied responsibility.

The alleged strike occurred on Saturday in northern Gaza, an area that has been encircled by Israeli forces and largely isolated for the past year. Israel has intensified its offensive there in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands.

Israeli forces have repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, claiming Hamas uses them for militant purposes, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials. Hamas fighters are also operating in the north, battling Israeli forces.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, which are jointly carrying out the polio vaccination campaign, expressed concern over the reported strike.



"This attack, during humanitarian pause, jeopardises the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination," the statement from WHO said.

“The reports of this attack are even more disturbing as the Sheikh Radwan Clinic is one of the health points where parents can get their children vaccinated,” said Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for UNICEF.

Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said that “contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the (Israeli military) did not strike in the area at the specified time.”


Delayed polio vaccinations resume in Gaza, agencies say

Reuters Videos
Updated Sat 2 November 2024 

Scroll back up to restore default view.

STORY: :: Gaza City, Gaza

The third phase of a delayed polio vaccination campaign in Gaza resumed on Saturday after being derailed by Israeli bombardments, mass displacement and lack of access.

:: November 2, 2024

Families with young children queued for the vaccine at this clinic in Gaza City.

The vaccination campaign began on September 1 after the World Health Organization confirmed that a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August.

It was the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

The WHO and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said the area covered by the September agreement had been substantially reduced and would now only cover Gaza City.

The final phase of the campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children under 10 years old in northern Gaza with a second dose of an oral polio vaccine.

Achieving this target is now unlikely due to constraints on access, according to a statement.

Jamil Ali, the head of the clinic, says the reduced campaign impacts its effectiveness in preventing the spread of the disease.

The Israeli army’s Palestinian civil affairs agency, COGAT, said it was helping to coordinate the three-day campaign. Once complete, it said there would be an assessment to decide whether to extend.

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