How a ceasefire in Gaza could help prevent a deadly outbreak of polio 

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Children under the age of 5, are most at risk from Polio amid the conflict, bottom, which has devastated Gaza’s health system. (AFP/File)
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Updated 12 August 2024
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How a ceasefire in Gaza could help prevent a deadly outbreak of polio 

  • Overcrowding, destruction of sanitation, and a deteriorating health system have contributed to the reemergence of polio 
  • The WHO has announced plans to send 1.2 million polio vaccines to Gaza after the virus was detected in wastewater

LONDON: More than 1 million children in the Gaza Strip are at risk of contracting type 2 poliovirus, a highly infectious disease that can lead to paralysis and even death, as displacement and the destruction of sanitation infrastructure leaves the population vulnerable to disease.

The World Health Organization has announced plans to send 1.2 million polio vaccines to Gaza after the virus was detected in wastewater samples taken last month from displacement camps in the northern governorates of Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah.

Although no clinical cases of polio have been diagnosed so far, Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director, warned that the virus could “spread further, including across borders” unless agencies acted quickly to vaccinate the population.




In this photo taken on September 9, 2020, a UNRWA employee provides poliomyeletis vaccine for children at a clinic in Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Health officials have detected poliovirus in Gaza again amid a raging war that has destroyed most of the health centers in the area. (AFP/File)

However, any mass polio immunization campaign in Gaza, targeting 600,000 children under the age of 8, would face a host of challenges, chief among them the absence of a ceasefire which would allow medics to safely access displaced communities.

“We need a ceasefire, even a temporary ceasefire, to successfully undertake these campaigns,” Balkhy said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

Children under the age of 5, and especially infants, are most at risk from polio, as many missed out on the regular vaccination campaigns that had taken place in Gaza before the conflict began on Oct. 7.

The virus, which spreads through contact with the feces, saliva or nasal mucus of an infected individual, attacks nerves in the spinal cord and the brain stem, leading to partial or total paralysis within hours.

It can also immobilize chest muscles, causing trouble breathing, even leading to death.




PAHO/WHO infographic

Polio was eradicated in Europe in 2003 thanks to an effective vaccination campaign. There have been no confirmed cases of paralysis due to polio caught in the UK since 1984.

Wild poliovirus cases have fallen by more than 99 percent since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries to six reported cases in 2021.

Of the three strains of wild poliovirus, type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and type 3 was eradicated in 2020. As of 2022, endemic type 1 remained in just two countries — Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In Gaza, overcrowding, a lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of type 2, according to Hamid Jafari, the WHO’s director of polio eradication, speaking at Wednesday’s press briefing.




WHO says overcrowding, a lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of polio in Gaza. (AFP)

The UN estimates at least 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants, including wastewater treatment facilities and sewage pumping stations, have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the conflict.

In late July, Gaza’s health authority declared the enclave a “polio epidemic zone,” blaming the resurgence of the virus on Israel’s bombing campaign and the ensuing damage this had caused to the healthcare system.

The Israeli military began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Although the Israeli military insists it does not target civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and utilities have suffered major damage.

The more than 490 attacks on medical facilities and personnel, documented by the UN during the first six months of the conflict alone, have left Gaza’s healthcare system in tatters. Just 16 of Gaza’s 36 health facilities remain partially functioning.

INNUMBERS

1.2 million Polio vaccines the WHO plans to send to Gaza to prevent outbreak.

600,000 Children under the age of 8 to be targeted in vaccination drive.

70% Proportion of Gaza’s sanitation facilities damaged or destroyed.

1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza displaced multiple times since the conflict began.

Three of these facilities are in the north, seven in Gaza City, three in Deir Al-Balah, three in Khan Younis, and none in the southern city of Rafah, according to the US-based nongovernmental organization Physicians for Human Rights.

Javid Abdelmoneim, a medical team leader for Medecins Sans Frontieres, who was working at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza last month, told the organization “every day in July has been one shock after another.”

Recounting one particularly traumatic incident, he said: “I walked in behind a curtain, and there was a little girl alone, dying by herself. And that’s the outcome of a collapsed health system. A little 8-year-old girl, dying alone on a trolley in the emergency room.

“In a functioning health system, she would have been saved.”




Medical equipment are laid to waste at a hospital in Gaza that had been destroyed by Israeli bombardment. (AFP)

Despite calls from the WHO and other aid bodies for the warring parties in Gaza to allow “absolute freedom of movement” so that medics can roll out a vaccination campaign, the possibility of a ceasefire appears no closer.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for several parts of northern Gaza, including Beit Hanoun, Manshiyya and Sheikh Zayed.

Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army’s spokesperson, posted the evacuation orders on the social media platform X. He instructed the residents of Beit Hanoun to “relocate immediately” to Deir Al-Balah and Zawayda.

“Beit Hanoun area is still considered a dangerous combat zone,” he added.




The constant evacuation of Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip has hampered the rollout of a vaccination campaign. (AP)

Despite assurances that these areas would be treated as safe zones in which civilians could shelter, both Deir Al-Balah and Zawayda have come under regular Israeli attack in recent months.

The UN reported that while nowhere in Gaza is safe, 86 percent of the besieged Palestinian enclave is under Israeli evacuation orders. About 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been displaced multiple times since Oct. 7.

“Nowhere is safe. Everywhere is a potential killing zone,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the opening of the UNRWA Pledging Conference on July 12.

The continuous movement of families in Gaza has made it difficult for aid agencies, which are already short of funds and struggling to reach affected populations, to locate and identify unvaccinated children.




In this file photo, a polio patient is fitted for an artificial limb at a rehabilitation center for prosthetics and treating polio in Gaza City. The war in Gaza has hampered the operation of the rehab center. (Getty Images)

The WHO’s polio specialist Jafari warned that the virus could have been circulating in Gaza since September, as the enclave offered “ideal conditions” for its transmission.

Before Oct. 7, polio vaccine coverage in the Occupied Palestinian Territories was estimated at 89 percent, according to the WHO.

Even if the planned 1.2 million vaccines are successfully brought into Gaza, it will be a “huge logistical challenge” to ensure their successful deployment, WHO official Andrea King told the BBC.

The vaccines must be stored within a limited temperature range from the moment they are manufactured until they are administered. Bringing these chilled vaccines into Gaza and keeping them at the required temperature would be a difficult undertaking at the best of times.




With a war going on, bringing chilled vaccines into Gaza and keeping them at the required temperature would be a difficult undertaking at the best of times, say WHO officials. (Getty Images)

The WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that a ceasefire or at least a few days of calm was essential to protect Gaza’s children.

As of July 7, the WHO has recorded a surge in infectious diseases, including 1 million cases of acute respiratory infections, 577,000 of acute watery diarrhea, 107,000 of acute jaundice syndrome, and 12,000 of bloody diarrhea.

It says this is primarily due to a lack of clean drinking water and the destruction of a critical water facility in Rafah, southern Gaza.
 

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Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry

Updated 56 min 7 sec ago
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Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry

  • The health ministry said that an “Israeli enemy” drone strike on a car in Kunin, south Lebanon, killed one man in a preliminary toll
  • The attack comes a day after Israel killed a woman and wounded 25 other people

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed one person on Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

In a statement, the health ministry said that an “Israeli enemy” drone strike on a car in Kunin, south Lebanon, killed one man in a preliminary toll.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.

The attack comes a day after Israel killed a woman and wounded 25 other people in strikes across the country’s south.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the woman was killed in an Israeli drone strike on an apartment in the city of Nabatiyeh.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on social media that the army “did not target any civilian building.”

The Friday attacks included a “wave of successive heavy strikes” in the Nabatiyeh region which injured seven people, according to the NNA.

The Israeli military said it “identified rehabilitation attempts made by Hezbollah beforehand and struck terror infrastructure sites in the area.”

Adraee said the civilian building “was hit by a rocket that was inside the (fire and defense array) site and launched and exploded as a result of the strike.”

Israel has repeatedly bombed its northern neighbor despite the November ceasefire that aimed to end over a year of hostilities with Hezbollah.

Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.

Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five locations in south Lebanon that it deems strategic.


Six Israelis detained for attacking soldiers in West Bank: military

Updated 28 June 2025
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Six Israelis detained for attacking soldiers in West Bank: military

JERUSALEM: Six Israelis were detained for assaulting soldiers near a town in the occupied West Bank where clashes with Palestinians erupted earlier this week, the military said on Saturday.
Soldiers went to disperse a gathering of Israelis near the central West Bank town of Kafr Malik overnight Friday to Saturday, the military said in a statement.
“Upon the arrival of the security forces, dozens of Israeli civilians hurled stones toward them and physically and verbally assaulted the soldiers, including the Battalion Commander,” it said.
“In addition, the civilians vandalized and damaged security forces’ vehicles, and attempted to ram the security forces,” it added.
“The security forces dispersed the gathering, and six Israeli civilians were apprehended and transferred to the Israel Police for further processing.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military declined to say whether those arrested were residents of Israeli settlements in the territory, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
The military referred the query to the Israeli police, which was not available to comment.
In a separate incident on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said three men died in Kafr Malik in an attack by settlers.
AFP journalists saw several hundred people gather for the three men’s funerals on Thursday.
The Palestinian foreign ministry alleged “official complicity” by Israel in Wednesday’s attack, in a message on X.
“Israeli occupation forces prevented ambulance crews from reaching the wounded and obstructed civil defense teams from entering the village for several hours, allowing fires ignited by the settlers to spread and destroy dozens of homes,” it said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request by AFP to comment on those claims.
A military spokesman told AFP its forces intervened on Wednesday after “dozens of Israeli civilians set fire to property in Kafr Malik” and a “confrontation” involving “mutual rock-hurling” broke out between Israelis and Palestinians.
Referring to action by the Palestinians, the spokesman said: “Several terrorists fired from within Kafr Malik and hurled rocks at the forces, who opened fire toward the source of fire and the rock-hurlers.”
Five Israelis were arrested, the military added.


Driven to starvation, Sudanese people eat weeds and plants to survive as war rages

Updated 28 June 2025
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Driven to starvation, Sudanese people eat weeds and plants to survive as war rages

  • Sudan plunged into war in April 2023 when tensions between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary the RSF escalated to fighting and spread across the country, killing over 20,000 people and pushing many to the brink of famine

CAIRO: With Sudan in the grips of war and millions struggling to find enough to eat, many are turning to weeds and wild plants to quiet their pangs of hunger. They boil the plants in water with salt because, simply, there is nothing else.
Grateful for the lifeline it offered, a 60-year-old retired school teacher penned a love poem about a plant called Khadija Koro. It was “a balm for us that spread through the spaces of fear,” he wrote, and kept him and many others from starving.
A.H, who spoke on the condition his full name not be used, because he feared retribution from the warring parties for speaking to the press, is one of 24.6 million people in Sudan facing acute food insecurity — nearly half the population, according to the I ntegrated Food Security Phase Classification. Aid workers say the war spiked market prices, limited aid delivery, and shrunk agricultural lands in a country that was once a breadbasket of the world.
Sudan plunged into war in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary the Rapid Support Forces escalated to fighting in the capital Khartoum and spread across the country, killing over 20,000 people, displacing nearly 13 million people, and pushing many to the brink of famine in what aid workers deemed the world’s largest hunger crisis.
Food insecurity is especially bad in areas in the Kordofan region, the Nuba Mountains, and Darfur, where El Fasher and Zamzam camp are inaccessible to the Norwegian Refugee Council, said Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the group based in Port Sudan. Some people survive on just one meal a day, which is mainly millet porridge. In North Darfur, some people even sucked on coal to ease their hunger.
On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the Sudanese military leader Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and asked him for a week-long ceasefire in El Fasher to allow aid delivery. Burhan agreed to that request, according to an army statement, but it’s unknown whether the RSF would agree to that truce.
A.H. said aid distribution often provided slight relief. His wife in children live in Obeid and also struggle to secure enough food due to high prices in the market.
His poem continued: “You were a world that sends love into the barren time. You were a woman woven from threads of the sun. You were the sandalwood and the jasmine and a revelation of green, glowing and longing.”
Fighting restricted travel, worsening food insecurity
Sudanese agricultural minister Abu Bakr Al-Bashari told Al-Hadath news channel in April that there are no indicators of famine in the country, but there is shortage of food supplies in areas controlled by the paramilitary forces, known as RSF.
However, Leni Kinzli, World Food Programme Sudan spokesperson, said 17 areas in Gezeira, most of the Darfur region, and Khartoum, including Jebel Aulia are at risk of famine. Each month, over 4 million people receive assistance from the group, including 1.7 million in areas facing famine or at risk, Kinzli said.
The state is suffering from two conflicts: one between the Rapid Support Forces and the army, and another with the People’s Liberation Movement-North, who are fighting against the army and have ties with the RSF, making it nearly impossible to access food, clean water, or medicine.
He can’t travel to Obeid in North Kordofan to be with his family, as the Rapid Support Forces blocked roads. Violence and looting have made travel unsafe, forcing residents to stay in their neighborhoods, limiting their access to food, aid workers said.
A.H. is supposed to get a retirement pension from the government, but the process is slow, so he doesn’t have a steady income. He can only transfer around $35 weekly to his family out of temporary training jobs, which he says is not enough.
Hassan, another South Kordofan resident in Kadugli said that the state has turned into a “large prison for innocent citizens” due to the lack of food, water, shelter, income, and primary health services caused by the RSF siege.
International and grassroots organizations in the area where he lives were banned by the local government, according to Hassan, who asked to be identified only by his first name in fear of retribution for speaking publicly while being based in an area often engulfed with fighting.
So residents ate the plants out of desperation.
“You would groan to give life an antidote when darkness appeared to us through the window of fear.,” A.H. wrote in his poem. “You were the light, and when our tears filled up our in the eyes, you were the nectar.
Food affordability
Vu warned that food affordability is another ongoing challenge as prices rise in the markets. A physical cash shortage prompted the Norwegian Refugee Council to replace cash assistance with vouchers. Meanwhile, authorities monopolize some markets and essential foods such as corn, wheat flour, sugar and salt are only sold through security approvals, according to Hassan.
Meanwhile, in southwest Sudan, residents of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, rely on growing crops, but agricultural lands are shrinking due to fighting and lack of farming resources.
Hawaa Hussein, a woman who has been displaced in El Serif camp since 2004, told the AP that they benefit from the rainy season but they’re lacking essential farming resources such as seeds and tractors to grow beans, peanuts, sesame, wheat, and weika — dried powdered okra.
Hussein, a grandmother living with eight family members, said her family receives a food parcel every two months, containing lentils, salt, oil, and biscuits. Sometimes she buys items from the market with the help of community leaders.
“There are many families in the camp, mine alone has five children, and so aid is not enough for everyone … you also can’t eat while your neighbor is hungry and in need,” she said.
El Serif camp is sheltering nearly 49,000 displaced people, the camp’s civic leader Abdalrahman Idris told the AP. Since the war began in 2023, the camp has taken in over 5,000 new arrivals, with a recent surge coming from the greater Khartoum region, which is the Sudanese military said it took full control of in May.
“The food that reaches the camp makes up only 5 percent of the total need. Some people need jobs and income. People now only eat two meals, and some people can’t feed their children,” he said.
In North Darfur, south of El Fasher, lies Zamzam camp, one of the worst areas struck by famine and recent escalating violence. An aid worker with the Emergency Response Rooms previously based in the camp who asked not to be identified in fear of retribution for speaking with the press, told the AP that the recent wave of violence killed some and left others homeless.
Barely anyone was able to afford food from the market as a pound of sugar costs 20,000 Sudanese pounds ($33) and a soap bar 10,000 Sudanese pounds ($17).
The recent attacks in Zamzam worsened the humanitarian situation and he had to flee to a safer area. Some elderly men, pregnant women, and children have died of starvation and the lack of medical treatment, according to an aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s fearful of retribution for speaking publicly while living in an area controlled by one of the warring parties. He didn’t provide the exact number of those deaths.
He said the situation in Zamzam camp is dire— “as if people were on death row.”
Yet A.H. finished his poem with hope:
“When people clashed and death filled the city squares” A.H. wrote “you, Koro, were a symbol of life and a title of loyalty.”


At least 60 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as ceasefire prospects inch closer

Updated 50 min 22 sec ago
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At least 60 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as ceasefire prospects inch closer

  • More than 20 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, according to health officials
  • A strike midday Saturday killed 11 people on a street in eastern Gaza City

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: At least 60 people were killed across Gaza by Israeli strikes, health workers said Saturday, as Palestinians face a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and ceasefire prospects inch closer.

The strikes began late Friday and continued into Saturday morning, among others killing 12 people near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City, which was sheltering displaced people, and eight more living in apartments, according to staff at Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were brought.

More than 20 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, according to health officials. A strike midday Saturday killed 11 people on a street in eastern Gaza City, and their bodies were taken to Al-Ahli Hospital.

The strikes come as US President Donald Trump says there could be a ceasefire agreement within the next week. Taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office Friday, the president said, “we’re working on Gaza and trying to get it taken care of.”

An official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will arrive in Washington next week for talks on Gaza’s ceasefire, Iran and other subjects.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Talks have been on again off again since Israel broke the latest ceasefire in March, continuing its military campaign in Gaza and furthering the Strip’s dire humanitarian crisis. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, fewer than half of them believed to still be alive.

They were part of some 250 hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking the 21-month-long war.

The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children.

There is hope among hostage families that Trump’s involvement in securing the recent ceasefire between Israel and Iran might exert more pressure for a deal in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is riding a wave of public support for the Iran war and its achievements, and he could feel he has more space to move toward ending the war in Gaza, something his far-right governing partners oppose.

Hamas has repeatedly said it is prepared to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says he will only end the war once Hamas is disarmed and exiled, something the group has rejected.

Meanwhile hungry Palestinians are enduring a catastrophic situation in Gaza. After blocking all food for 2 1/2 months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.

Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.

Palestinians have also been shot and wounded while on their way to get food at newly formed aid sites, run by the American and Israeli backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to Gaza’s health officials and witnesses.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli troops have opened fire at crowds on the roads heading toward the sites. Israel’s military said it was investigating incidents in which civilians had been harmed while approaching the sites.


Thousands mourn top Iranian military commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes

Updated 46 min 29 sec ago
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Thousands mourn top Iranian military commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes

  • Caskets of Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami and Gen. Amir Ali Hajjizadeh and others were driven on trucks along the capital
  • Saturday’s ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefir

DUBAI: Thousands of mourners lined the streets of downtown Tehran on Saturday for the funeral of the head of the Revolutionary Guard and other top commanders and nuclear scientists killed during a 12-day war with Israel.

The caskets of Guard’s chief Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajjizadeh and others were driven on trucks along the capital’s Azadi Street.

Salami and Hajjizadeh were both killed on the first day of the war, June 13, as Israel launched a war it said meant to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, specifically targeting military commanders, scientists and nuclear facilities.

Over 12 days before a ceasefire was declared on Tuesday, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group.

Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted, but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people.

Saturday’s ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children.

Authorities closed government offices to allow public servants to attend the ceremonies.

Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. But Israel views it as an existential threat and said its military campaign was necessary to prevent Iran from building an atomic weapon.