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UNICEF: Inaction on Gaza Amounts to 'Approval' of Killing Children

A Palestinian girl wounded in an Israeli strike is assisted, after a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel expired, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 1, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh
A Palestinian girl wounded in an Israeli strike is assisted, after a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel expired, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 1, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh
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UNICEF: Inaction on Gaza Amounts to 'Approval' of Killing Children

A Palestinian girl wounded in an Israeli strike is assisted, after a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel expired, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 1, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh
A Palestinian girl wounded in an Israeli strike is assisted, after a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel expired, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 1, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh

UNICEF on Friday appealed for a lasting ceasefire to be implemented in Gaza, describing inaction as "an approval of the killing of children" after a week-old truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed.

"A lasting ceasefire must be implemented," James Elder, spokesperon for UNICEF, told reporters via video link from Gaza.

"Inaction at its core is an approval of the killing of children."

Barely two hours after the truce expired, Gaza health officials reported that 35 people had already been killed and dozens wounded in air strikes that hit at least eight homes.
Medics and witnesses said the bombing was most intensive in Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, and also targeted houses in central and northern areas.

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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.