UNICEF, the United Nations Children Fund says it is attempting to begin a catch-up campaign of immunisation in the Gaza Strip for the thousands of children who have been cut off by the Israeli total war on the Strip from life-sizing services. UNICEF also wants to provide nutrition and growth monitoring, since the deliberate Israeli starvation of children raised the danger of stunting.
The campaign, however, requires syringes and solar-powered refrigeration units. Vaccines need to be kept cold or they lose their potency. UNICEF is complaining that Israeli authorities are blocking importation of these two essential items, since they consider them “dual use,” with military purposes.
That Israeli policy is frankly senselessly cruel, since syringes and refrigerators are not actually military munitions. Despite the so-called “ceasefire,” Israel’s war on the civilian population, 50% of which consist of children, continues, including limiting the number of trucks bringing in food and medical aid to well below the 600 a day the Israelis pledged to permit in when the cease fire was concluded.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports, “between 11-22 October, only 1,098 UN and partner trucks were offloaded at Gaza’s crossings—far below the number required to meet humanitarian needs. Access obstacles persist, including the lack of authorisation for INGOs to bring aid into Gaza, blocking critical supplies and severely constraining the supply pipeline.” That was less than 100 trucks a day when even 600 might not have been enough! The UN declared a man-made famine in Gaza in August, and it isn’t clear that the Israelis have actually ended it.
Still, in the past month the UN says it has fed a million people with the limited supplies the Israelis have permitted in. There are, however, over two million people in the Gaza Strip.
UNICEF Spokesperson Tess Ingram said, “UNICEF has launched an integrated health, nutrition and immunisation campaign here in the Gaza Strip to reach children who missed out on life saving vaccinations because of the decimation of the health system over the past two years. 1 in 5 infants have missed out on one or more vaccines. This is a big jump ahead of us in the coming days.”
UNICEF says it wants to conduct three rounds of vaccinations, giving three doses of “Pentavalent, Polio, Rota & Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine” and giving two doses of “Measles, Mumps, Rubella vaccine.” The first round should already have begun, but it is unclear it can go forward without the syringes and refrigerators.
The UNICEF video from Gaza records a statement from Khawla, mother of 3 children, from Beit Lahia: “I came here on foot just to get my children vaccinated and to make sure my daughter stays healthy too. I hope their future will be better than ours, that God will make things easier for us and for them, and that I’ll get to see them happy and not have it as hard as we did.”
This Palestinian mother, Khawla (whose name means “gazelle”), has about a thousand times more common sense than US Secretary of Health and human services RFK Jr.
In the background of the video, we can see that “children are being screened for malnutrition, and those identified are receiving treatment and ongoing follow-up.”
UNICEF physicians estimate that 20% of children (I would have said toddlers) under 3 either have never had a vaccine or have missed essential shots. These little tykes are therefore in danger of contracting infectious diseases, which are otherwise preventable. Diseases like measles can occasionally be fatal, it should be remembered. They will also be inoculated against “diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, rotavirus and pneumonia.”
Conditions in Gaza are highly unsanitary. In August and September before the ceasefire, The Global WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Cluster NGO reported from the ground that “No residents currently have access to safely managed sanitation, as defined by SDG 6.2, which includes safe containment and treatment of waste. 57% of the population is exposed to sewage or fecal matter within 10 meters [yards] of their homes, posing serious health and environmental risks.” These conditions, imposed on the population by Israeli politicians and military officers, are conducive to cholera outbreaks. Cholera can be fatal to toddlers.
Ingram added, “We’ve trained hundreds of health workers, and we’re rehabilitating health facilities that were damaged during the conflict. In order to do this well, the ceasefire must hold and civilians must be protected. Health workers need to know they can do this job safely, and families need to know that they can move to the health facilities with safety. This is the time to protect the children who survived the horrors of the last few years and make sure they don’t succumb to preventable, but deadly diseases.”
UNICEF doctors will screen the children for malnutrition and other health problems, making sure they are treated if they have these conditions. The World Health Organization is supplying in-patient stabilisation centers for the little ones wasting away from lack of food.
IOM says, “1.5 million people require both emergency shelter items and essential household goods. Approximately one million people are residing in roughly 800 displacement sites across Gaza, where severe overcrowding persist.” They note that winter is coming, and with it cold and rainy conditions that will worsen the health of the large number of Palestinians still forced by the Israelis to sleep rough.
Absolutely wrong. The International Community are failing these children.