The UN has said its ability to function in Gaza is being crippled by a flurry of Israeli evacuation orders, forcing Palestinians into ever smaller and more remote areas, days before a critical effort to contain a polio outbreak.
Aid workers warn that without a humanitarian pause, a vaccination drive due to begin this weekend could fail to reach enough children to stop the spread of the virus, which was detected there this month for the first time in 25 years. A baby has already been partly paralysed by the disease, and health experts have warned it could spread rapidly given the terrible sanitation and overcrowding in camps for Gaza’s exhausted, displaced population.
“One thing for sure is that it’s almost impossible to lead a polio vaccination campaign at scale in an active combat zone,” said Jonathan Crickx, a spokesperson in the region for the UN child welfare agency, Unicef.
Talks are under way between aid agencies and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) about the planned vaccination campaign. The IDF cooperated in the delivery of more than 25,000 vials of vaccine and refrigeration equipment through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza on Sunday, but their commanders have yet to agree to a pause in the bombing to allow the immunisation effort to go ahead safely and effectively.
Israeli forces have significantly stepped up their clearance of neighbourhoods, including camps for the displaced, in what they said was the pursuit of “terror operatives”.
According to the UN, the Israeli military issued a record 16 evacuation orders in August, forcing 12% of the territory’s population to move within a few days. The overwhelming majority of those affected have already had to flee multiple times since the start of the war nearly 11 months ago.
The impact of the orders on aid workers such as drivers meant that the UN had to halt movements around the strip on Monday, though staff already in position with supplies were able to continue their work.
“These evacuation orders … make our work nearly impossible,” said UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. He added that the residual work still under way was “half a drop in a barrel” compared with the needs of the 2.2 million Palestinians besieged in Gaza.
Juliette Touma, the head spokesperson for Unrwa, the biggest humanitarian agency operating in Gaza, said: “Our ability to undertake and implement humanitarian work is shrinking by the hour. Every time there are evacuation orders, we are affected, because our local staff are constantly on the move and they are the backbone of the humanitarian operation.”
The latest evacuation orders have targeted Deir al-Balah, a town in central Gaza that became a humanitarian hub after cities to the south such as Rafah and Khan Younis were targeted by IDF offensives. The latest edict on Sunday affected four UN warehouses in the town and 15 premises used by aid agencies.
The orders are increasingly concentrating huge numbers of displaced Palestinians within a 41 sq km area of the Gazan coast at al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis.
According to a report on Monday by the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA: “The severe overcrowding, with a density of 30,000 to 34,000 individuals per square kilometre, has exacerbated the dire shortage of essential resources such as water, sanitation and hygiene supplies, health services, protection and shelter.”
The refrigerated warehouse where the vials of polio vaccine are being stored is in Deir al-Balah, in a district not directly affected by the evacuation orders. However, the orders impede the ability of aid workers to move around and find the Gaza’s scattered children, including more than 50,000 babies estimated to have been born since the start of the war who are very unlikely to have received any vaccinations at all.
For the immunisation drive to be effective in containing the polio outbreak, the first of two rounds of vaccine must reach 90% of those babies and the rest of the 640,000 children in Gaza under the age of 10. This will need to be achieved quickly to break the transmission of the virus before it spreads or mutates.
“It’s absolutely critical that this vaccination campaign is executed in a few days – between five to seven days is what we are asking for,” Crickx said.
