August 24, 2024
Ann Arbor
(Informed Comment) – Julian Borger at The Guardian reports that the first
verified case of type 2 poliovirus in 25 years in Gaza, in a baby, has resulted
in the paralysis of the infant. It is only the first of many if the UN is not
allowed to administer vaccines to 650,000 children in the Strip, which will
definitely require a ceasefire. The Israeli authorities are refusing to
consider this step.
There is no cure
for polio once it is contracted. Its victims can be paralyzed or can die.
Without a
ceasefire, UNICEF points out, you cannot get the families to line up their
children to receive the vaccine by mouth. Some 95% of the infants in Gaza need
to have the vaccine administered to prevent an outbreak, and they need two
doses. Without a ceasefire, the aid workers cannot even safely move around to
make arrangements for giving out the doses. The aid organizations want to use
Deir al-Balah to store and distribute the vaccines, but the Israeli army has
just once again ordered everyone out of it and has invaded it, risking
destroying the remaining medical infrastructure there. Some 250,000
Palestinians have once again been expelled from their shelters since the
beginning of August.
UNRWA head
Philippe Lazzarini warned regarding Gaza, “Delaying a humanitarian pause will
increase the risk of spread among children.” He suggested that some Israeli
children could suffer from an epidemic, as well, but of course Israeli children
have largely been vaccinated continually. Palestinian children had also been
almost entirely vaccinated up until the Israeli total war on Gaza was
implemented last fall.
UNICEF wrote of
another war, Ukraine, “UNICEF helps vaccinate over 400 million children
globally against polio every year, to eradicate polio worldwide. In Ukraine,
UNICEF works to secure uninterrupted availability of life-saving vaccines for
children and adults and to maintain high routine immunization coverage. As the
war and subsequent displacement continues, gaps in immunization coverage put
children’s health at risk.”
Although
children in Ukraine are also at risk from polio outbreaks, the human toll of
that war pales in comparison to Gaza. Some 2,000 children have been killed as a
result of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s total war on the Gaza population has blown over
15,000 children to smithereens.
Whereas Putin’s
Russia has been massively sanctioned for its illegal occupation and warfare in
Ukraine by the US and most NATO countries, Israel’s government, which illegally
occupied Gaza in 1967 and which has shown a reckless disregard for civilian life
that may amount to genocide, has been given tens of billions of dollars by the
Biden administration.
Type 2 polio
vaccinations are substantially down over the past ten months, since the
population and the aid workers have been constantly expelled from a succession
of supposed safe zones by the Israeli military, medical facilities have been
destroyed, and medicine deliveries have been made difficult or impossible by
the bombings, artillery barrages, machine gun fire, drone strikes, lack of fuel
and general chaos deliberately inflicted on the entire population by
monstrously permissive Israeli rules of engagement — which entirely disregard
the value of civilian, noncombatant life.
Although Israeli
authorities are allowing the delivery of the refrigerated trucks necessary for
the vaccines, as well as the vaccine doses themselves, through the Kerem Shalom
crossing, the aid workers are pointing out that these steps do no good at all unless
there is a ceasefire that allows the aid workers to move around and give the
vaccines to the children. Borger quotes Lazzarini as saying, “It is not enough
to bring the vaccines into Gaza and protect the cold chain. To have an impact,
the vaccines must end up in the mouths of every child under the age of 10.”
UNICEF points
out that “The world has made tremendous progress against polio in the past
three decades, vaccinating over 2.5 billion children and reducing cases by 99
percent. But this progress is fragile, and we cannot afford to lose focus.
Millions of children are still missing out on routine vaccinations because of
pandemic disruptions, conflict, climate disasters and displacement.”
It quotes Yuliia
Dovjanych, Head Doctor at the ‘Dbayu’ medical centre “Infectious diseases do
not disappear during the war. The fight against them is our ‘medical front’
where we must remain resilient. Therefore, we must continue to get vaccinated,
take care of our health and the health of our children!” Some 11,520 civilians
have been killed in the Ukraine war, whereas over 40,000 people have been
killed in Gaza, a majority of them women and children.
At the medical
front in Gaza, the war to save the children is going very badly. It will be
lost without a ceasefire.
Jake
Johnson
Rep.
Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in the U.S. Congress, said Friday
that she is "so saddened and ashamed of our country looking away and
pretending they are trying to stop this madness" after the World Health
Organization confirmed that a 10-month-old child in Gaza was paralyzed by
polio.
"The
first case of polio in more than 25 years, but no one will care because the
baby is Palestinian," Tlaib (D-Mich.) lamented. "We don't want your
thoughts and prayers. We need action."
Tlaib's
comments came hours after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris closed out the
Democratic National Convention with a speech that acknowledged the
"heartbreaking" suffering in Gaza without clearly identifying the
perpetrators—the far-right Israeli government and its main arms supplier, the
United States—or pledging to break with President Joe Biden's unwavering
support for Israel.
"Vice
President Harris has said that she supports a cease-fire in Gaza," Abbas
Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement, said in a statement
Friday. "But a cease-fire cannot happen as long as the U.S. continues
supplying the bombs used to kill people we love.
The
Biden administration has continued to transfer lethal weaponry to the Israeli
military even amid overwhelming evidence that the country's forces are using
the arms to commit atrocities in Gaza, wiping out entire families and civilian
infrastructure. Israel's blockade, meanwhile, is suffocating the enclave's
population, forcing children to search rotting garbage for food as famine takes
hold across the territory.
Last
month, the already dire humanitarian emergency became even more grave after
health officials detected poliovirus in sewage samples at several locations in
southern and central Gaza.
On
August 16, Gaza's health ministry confirmed that an unvaccinated 10-month-child
in Deir al-Balah contracted polio; the World Health Organization said earlier
this week that the child was partially paralyzed by the disease, for which
there is no known cure.
A
coalition of aid agencies and medical professionals warned Tuesday that
"without immediate action, an entire generation is at risk of infection,
and hundreds of children face paralysis by a highly communicable disease that
can be prevented with a simple vaccine."
An
urgent vaccination drive is underway, but the effort has been made extremely
difficult and dangerous by relentless Israeli bombing.
Over
the past 48 hours, Israeli attacks have killed at least 69 Gazans and wounded
212 more, according to the enclave's health ministry.
Al
Jazeera reported Saturday that "a woman and a young girl are among those
killed in Israel's latest attack on the Bureij refugee camp."
"Their
bodies, along with other children wounded by the assault, have been rushed to
al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp," the outlet added.
"Footage from the hospital, verified by Al Jazeera's fact-checking agency
Sanad, shows several bloodied children receiving treatment, while a man weeps
over the body of a deceased child."
No comments:
Post a Comment