First round of Gaza anti-polio campaign ends, 560,000 children vaccinated: UN

The United Nations and its partners have vaccinated against polio more than 560,000 children under 10 in the Gaza Strip, UN humanitarians said on Friday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the first round of the emergency vaccination campaign in the north, central, and southern zones of Gaza wound up on Thursday. OCHA said that during the final phase of the first round in northern Gaza, the United Nations and its partners reached more than 112,000 children with the vaccine over three days.

The office said its partners are set to begin the second round of the vaccination campaign in about four weeks. The humanitarians said a new analysis by the WHO found 22,500 people injured in Gaza as of July 23 are estimated to have life-changing injuries that will require rehabilitation services now and for years to come. The injuries represent a quarter of the overall injuries the Ministry of Health reported in that period.

OCHA said the report comes amid the decimation of the health system in Gaza, with just 17 of 36 hospitals partially functional, while primary health care and community-level services are often suspended or made inaccessible due to attacks, insecurity and repeated evacuation orders. The office said it has mobilized humanitarian partners to assess the needs of people affected by the latest two-day operation by Israeli forces in Tulkarm and Tubas in the West Bank.

That operation concluded on Thursday, with nearly a dozen Palestinians reportedly killed. OCHA said dozens of families were displaced when their homes were damaged on Wednesday and Thursday during the operation, which involved Israeli air and ground troops, with exchanges of fire between Palestinians and Israeli forces. “The use of lethal war-like tactics in these areas of the West Bank has raised concerns over excessive use of force which appear to exceed law enforcement standards,” OCHA said. – – -RSS