Polio vaccines give Gaza families all too brief respite from war

Anxious parents lining up with their children for a polio vaccine in central Gaza are counting down the hours until a pause in fighting ends in the area.

As health officials administer the doses, Gazan mother Huda Sheikh Ali wonders what good the polio vaccination campaign could do when her children would soon face more Israeli air strikes and shelling.

“There is no protection for them, in just a short few hours the ceasefire will end and we will return to seeing children bombed and killed. There is no protection from these things,” she says.

“We managed to take a breather for a few hours, for our child…imagine what it would be like with a permanent ceasefire. The children are dying every single day and they are giving us some vaccines for polio?”

The campaign was prompted by the discovery of a case of polio in a baby boy last month, the first in the Gaza Strip for 25 years. Israel and Hamas agreed to daily pauses of eight hours in the fighting in pre-specified areas to allow the vaccination program. No violations have been reported.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says it is making good progress in rolling out a polio vaccine but calls for a permanent ceasefire to ease humanitarian suffering.

UNRWA says that three days into the campaign in areas of central Gaza, around 187,000 children had received the vaccine. The campaign will move to other areas of the territory in the second stage.

Palestinians say a key reason for the return of polio is the collapse of Gaza’s health system and the destruction of most of its hospitals during the war. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes.

Hadeel Darbiyeh, who brought her infant daughter for the polio vaccination, says she shared the pessimism of other parents in Gaza.

“Instead of bringing the vaccines, bring us a solution to stop the war,” she says. “Bring us a solution for the oppressed people who have all been forced to flee their homes and into tents.”