Successful ‘polio pause’ prompts renewed calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire

A child receives a vaccination for polio at a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict in a school run by the UNRWA in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 09 September 2024
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Successful ‘polio pause’ prompts renewed calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire

  • Destruction of water and sanitation services caused the highly infectious virus to re-emerge
  • With most primary roads destroyed, families and aid agencies faced perilous journeys to vaccination sites

LONDON: The UN’s polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has been deemed a success, even though it was conducted in “the most dangerous and difficult (place) on the planet.” However, Palestinian civilians remain at significant risk of injury, illness and death amid the ongoing conflict.

A pause in the fighting between the Israeli military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in and around the vaccination sites has been critical for the immunization campaign. However, elsewhere in the war-torn territory, the fighting continued.

On Sept. 7, just as medical teams were wrapping up the second phase of the vaccination campaign, Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip killed scores of people — including children.




A man inspects the damage following an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City on September 7, 2024. (AFP)

The vaccination campaign was launched in Gaza after an 11-month-old baby was diagnosed with the viral disease in August, marking the first case in the Strip for 25 years, raising fears it could spread to neighboring countries.

Adele Khodr, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at UNICEF, described the three-phase campaign as one of “the most dangerous and difficult vaccination campaigns on the planet.”

“Even with a polio pause, the vaccination campaign faces grave danger and immeasurable obstacles, including damaged roads and health infrastructure, displaced populations, looting and disrupted supply routes,” she said in a statement on Sept. 4.

“Children have suffered enough,” she added, warning that the reemergence of the virus is now “threatening other children in the region.”




A child has their finger marked after receiving a vaccination for polio at a makeshift camp in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024. (AFP)

Polio, 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.

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.




Children stand next to raw sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on August 19, 2024. (AFP)

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 in the water supply.

According to UNICEF, the first phase of the polio vaccination program, which ran from Sept. 1 to 3 in central Gaza, reached more than 189,000 children under the age of 10.

The second phase was carried out in southern Gaza, particularly in Khan Younis and Rafah, from Sept. 5 to 8, targeting approximately 340,000 children under 10.

The third phase, which was launched on Sept. 9, is scheduled to run until Sept. 11, targeting some 150,000 children in the north.

IN NUMBERS

  • 680K Children in Gaza targeted under the UN’s polio vaccination campaign.
  • 92% Primary roads damaged or destroyed, obstructing vaccine distribution.
  • 70% Water and sanitation plants damaged or destroyed, contributing to outbreak.

(Source: UN, World Bank)

Coinciding with the vaccine’s rollout on Sept. 1, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on the social media platform X that “ultimately, the best vaccine for these children is peace.”

However, the area-specific truces that allowed the rollout to take place have done little to provide the children of Gaza with hope of a lasting end to the violence.

While vaccination sites have not been targeted, Gazan families, wearied by 11 months of war and worsening humanitarian conditions, had to make the perilous journey with their children to these locations amid the ongoing bombardment.




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)

Khodr praised the families for turning out “in high numbers” at vaccination sites, “despite relentless attacks on schools and sites sheltering uprooted children, exhausting displacement orders forcing families to relocate time and again, and widespread hunger levels that have at points pushed parts of Gaza to the brink of famine.”

Not only has the journey to vaccination units been long and exhausting for Gazan families, but also for humanitarian teams delivering and administering the vaccines.

With 92 percent of Gaza’s primary roads damaged or destroyed, according to the World Bank, civilians and medical workers were all forced to use a single route — Al-Bahar Street.

“Unfortunately, only one road in Gaza remains operational, and it’s Al-Bahar Street,” Fady Abed, the Gaza communications officer for the medical NGO MedGlobal, told Arab News.

“This is the sole road servicing about 1.9 million displaced people in Al-Mawasi, western Khan Younis, Rafah and Deir Al-Balah.”




Palestinian residents walk along a road now dirt, past destroyed and razed buildings east of Gaza City on July 11, 2024. (AFP)

An April report by the World Bank and the UN highlighted that severe damage to road networks and the communications infrastructure has hampered the delivery of much-needed basic humanitarian aid to people across Gaza.

When he spoke with Arab News on Sept. 5, Abed of MedGlobal had just returned to Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza from working in Khan Younis.

Describing the logistical challenges his team has been facing, he said the journey between Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, normally no more than 15 minutes, now takes over an hour.

Abed also said transportation has been a major challenge due to fuel shortages. “There is no fuel for cars,” he said. “Drivers have resorted to mixing vegetable oil with diesel to keep vehicles running, which results in harmful smoke emissions.

“To vaccinate your child, you risk them suffocating from vehicle fumes.”




MedGlobal’s team delivering polio vaccines in Khan Younis on Sep. 5. (Supplied)

And since the vaccine must be kept cold at all times, MedGlobal could only carry as many doses as they expected to administer. Abed said his team “avoided carrying large quantities of the vaccine to prevent it from spoiling after being kept outside coolers for too long.

“At one point, the number of children arriving at the vaccination unit exceeded the available doses. Members of our team had to make the long, arduous journey back and forth to replenish the supply while families waited.

“This was frustrating for both our team and the families, who were exhausted yet eager to have their children vaccinated.”

Israel mounted its Gaza operation in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which saw 1,200 killed and 250 taken hostage. At least 40,900 Palestinians have been killed and more than 94,450 injured since the conflict began, according to Gaza’s health authority.




Palestinian children receive malnourishment treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024. (AFP)

Around 90 percent of the population has been displaced at least once, fleeing from one Israeli-designated “safe zone” to another.

The Israeli bombardment has devastated much of Gaza’s infrastructure, bringing the health sector and sanitation services to their knees and causing the resurgence and spread of multiple infectious diseases.

According to UN figures, the conflict has damaged or destroyed 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants.




Palestinian children queue at a water distribution point in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on August 25, 2024. (AFP)

In late July, Gaza’s health authority declared the enclave a “polio epidemic zone,” attributing the resurgence of the virus to the damage caused by Israel’s bombing campaign.

UNICEF’s Khodr called on the warring parties to continue to respect the polio pauses. Achieving at least 90 percent vaccination coverage in Gaza would stop the virus from spreading, she said.

“Preparing for this ambitious campaign and securing these pauses was not easy but it demonstrates that it is possible to allow supplies into the Strip, silence the strikes and protect civilians.”

 


Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

Updated 18 February 2025
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

  • The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.

 


More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

People walk past shops in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 19 February 2025
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More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

  • “Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

GENEVA: More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad, including 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.
Assad was toppled in December in a rebel offensive, putting an end to his family’s decades-long grip on power in the Middle Eastern country and bookmarking a civil war that broke out in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes.
The Islamist-led rebels whose offensive ousted Assad have sought to assure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.
“Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.
“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though, otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.
At a meeting in Paris in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Turkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”
The meeting’s final statement also pledged support for Syria’s new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
 

 


Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

Updated 19 February 2025
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Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck weapons which it said belonged to the former Syrian administration in southern Syria.

 


Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

Updated 18 February 2025
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Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

  • France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco

ALGIERS: Algeria on Tuesday denounced a visit by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati to Western Sahara, after Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory, as “objectionable on multiple levels.”
The vast desert territory is a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati, who described her visit as “historic,” launched with Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid a French cultural mission in the territory’s main city, Laayoune.
An Algerian foreign ministry statement posted on social media Tuesday said the visit “reflects blatant disregard for international legality by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”
“This visit reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonization process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled,” it said.
Dati’s trip, a first for a French official, “reflects the detestable image of a former colonial power in solidarity with a new one,” the statement added.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara to be a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said Rabat’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
In October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front said it was ending a 29-year ceasefire with Morocco after Moroccan troops were deployed to the far south of the territory to remove independence supporters blocking the only road to Mauritania.
The Polisario Front claims the route is illegal, arguing that it did not exist when the ceasefire was established in 1991.
 

 


Kurdistan region’s pipeline restart ready to go, foreign minister says

Updated 18 February 2025
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Kurdistan region’s pipeline restart ready to go, foreign minister says

  • Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently

BAGHDAD: A major pipeline connecting Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to Turkiye is ready to reopen and resume exports, the Kurdish foreign minister said on Tuesday, potentially ending a dispute between Baghdad and Irbil that led to the closure of the pipeline in 2023.
Foreign Minister Safeen Dizayee declined to say when the pipeline would reopen but said it would mark a turning point in relations between Kurdistan and Baghdad.
Iraq’s oil minister said on Monday the Iraq-Turkiye pipeline (ITP) will resume next week.
“All arrangements that were set on the table have been agreed to, with the aim to prepare for re-exports. There shouldn’t be any hiccups. The legal aspects have been met, the technical aspects are in place,” Dizayee told Reuters by phone. “The button just has to be pushed to increase production and then re-export.”
The oil flows were halted by Turkiye in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad damages of $1.5 billion for unauthorized pipeline exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government between 2014 and 2018.
Negotiations to restart the pipeline have been ongoing, with US officials participating in some of the talks.
Resuming oil exports will boost the Kurdistan region’s budget, Dizayee said.
“This means Kurdistan will benefit from the federal budget and hopefully this will end the saga of (civil servants’) salaries coming or not coming, received in dribs and drabs,” Dizayee said.
Baghdad has periodically withheld the Kurdistan region’s share of the federal budget to try to stop it from exporting oil independently.
Oil producers in the Kurdistan region have had to wind down production without an export route. It will likely take some time for them to restart their oil wells and for the pipeline to use its full capacity. Before it was shut down, it transported around 450,000 barrels per day.
“They’ve invested a lot. It was a risk they took and it must pay off. They [the companies] need assurances that their investment will not be down the drain,” Dizayee said. “Compensation is something that needs to be discussed.”
An international consultancy will be brought in to do an assessment of the cost of production, expenses, cost recovery and the production sharing agreements, he said.