Polio Vaccines Give Gaza Families All Too Brief Respite from War

Palestinian children, accompanied by parents, wait to be vaccinated against polio, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 4, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian children, accompanied by parents, wait to be vaccinated against polio, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 4, 2024. (Reuters)
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Polio Vaccines Give Gaza Families All Too Brief Respite from War

Palestinian children, accompanied by parents, wait to be vaccinated against polio, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 4, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian children, accompanied by parents, wait to be vaccinated against polio, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 4, 2024. (Reuters)

Anxious parents lining up with their children for a polio vaccine in central Gaza were counting down the hours until a pause in fighting ends in the area on Wednesday, threatening more death and destruction in the 11-month-old war.

As health officials administered the doses, Gazan mother Huda Sheikh Ali wondered what good the polio vaccination campaign could do when her children would soon face more Israeli air strikes and shelling.

"There is no protection for them, in just a short few hours the ceasefire will end and we will return to seeing children bombed and killed. There is no protection from these things," she said.

"We managed to take a breather for a few hours, for our child ... imagine what it would be like with a permanent ceasefire. The children are dying every single day and they are giving us some vaccines for polio?"

The campaign was prompted by the discovery of a case of polio in a baby boy last month, the first in the Gaza Strip for 25 years. Israel and Hamas agreed to daily pauses of eight hours in the fighting in pre-specified areas to allow the vaccination program. No violations have been reported.

But a permanent end to the war is not in sight. Diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire, release hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel have faltered.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has killed more than 40,861 Palestinians and injured 94,398, according to the Gaza health ministry. The ministry reported at the end of July that 10,627 children had been killed.

Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been uprooted from their homes and many families have moved repeatedly up and down the Gaza Strip in search of safe shelter.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Wednesday it was making good progress in rolling out a polio vaccine, but called for a permanent ceasefire to ease humanitarian suffering.

UNRWA said that three days into the campaign in areas of central Gaza, around 187,000 children had received the vaccine. The campaign will move to other areas of the territory in the second stage.

Palestinians say a key reason for the return of polio is the collapse of Gaza's health system and the destruction of most of its hospitals during the war. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes, something the group denies.

Hadeel Darbiyeh, who brought her infant daughter for the polio vaccination, said she shared the pessimism of other parents in Gaza.

"Instead of bringing the vaccines, bring us a solution to stop the war," she said. "Bring us a solution for the oppressed people who have all been forced to flee their homes and into tents."



Algeria's President is Expected to Win a Second Term in Saturday's Election

A man walks past an electoral banner of Algeria's incumbent president and independent presidential candidate Abdelmajid Tebboune in Oran on September 5, 2024, ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. (Photo by AFP)
A man walks past an electoral banner of Algeria's incumbent president and independent presidential candidate Abdelmajid Tebboune in Oran on September 5, 2024, ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. (Photo by AFP)
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Algeria's President is Expected to Win a Second Term in Saturday's Election

A man walks past an electoral banner of Algeria's incumbent president and independent presidential candidate Abdelmajid Tebboune in Oran on September 5, 2024, ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. (Photo by AFP)
A man walks past an electoral banner of Algeria's incumbent president and independent presidential candidate Abdelmajid Tebboune in Oran on September 5, 2024, ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. (Photo by AFP)

Algerians head to the polls Saturday to cast votes for president and determine who will govern their gas-rich North African nation — five years after pro-democracy protests prompted the military to oust the previous president after two decades in power.
Algeria is Africa's largest country by area and, with almost 45 million people, it's the continent's second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024 — a year in which more than 50 elections are being held worldwide, encompassing more than half the world's population.
Since elections were scheduled in March — ahead of the predicted schedule — there has been little suspense as President Abdelmadjid Tebboune appears poised to breeze to victory against the two challengers running against him.
The hot summer campaign has sparked little enthusiasm, apart from on public television, where it's required that candidate and surrogate appearances be covered. On TV, election season has been presented as a vibrant affair.
“Voting has no meaning in Algeria like in the big democracies,” 28-year-old Kaci Taher told The Associated Press a month before the election. “Where I come from, the results and quotas are fixed in advance in the back room of the government, so what’s the point of taking part in the electoral farce?”
Tebboune was elected in December 2019 after nearly a year of weekly demonstrations demanding the resignation of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Their demands were met when Bouteflika resigned that April and was replaced by an interim government of his former allies, which called for elections later in the year.
Protestors opposed holding elections too soon, fearing the candidates running that year each were close to the old regime and would perpetuate the corruption-ridden system they wanted to end. Tebboune, a former prime minister seen as close to Algeria's politically powerful military, emerged the winner. But his victory was marred by low voter turnout, widespread boycotts from protestors and Election Day tumult, during which crowds sacked voting stations and police broke up demonstrations.
This year, Tebboune ran as an independent candidate with the support of several political parties including the National Liberation Front, which has dominated Algerian politics since the country wrested independence from France after more than a decade of war in 1962.
The southwestern Algeria native and political veteran has framed his first term in office as a turning point, telling voters in a campaign rally the week before polls that he “put Algeria back on track." To cement his legitimacy both domestically and to Algeria's allies, he hopes more of the country's 24 million eligible voters will participate in Saturday's election than in his first, when 39.9% turned out to vote.
“It seems that what matters most to ‘le pouvoir’ in this election is voter turnout to lend legitimacy to their candidate, whose victory is a foregone conclusion,” said Algerian sociologist Mohamed Hennad, employing a term frequently used to describe the military-backed political establishment.
Twenty-six candidates submitted preliminary paperwork to run in the election, although only two were ultimately approved to challenge Tebboune. Like the president, both have also emphasized turnout. Neither political novices, they have avoided directly criticizing Tebboune on the campaign trail.
Abdelali Hassani Cherif, a 57-year-old engineer from the Movement of Society for Peace party has made populist appeals to Algerian youth, running on the slogan “Opportunity!” and calling for efforts to boost employment and reform education, where French language has long played a major role in addition to Arabic.
Youcef Aouchiche, a 41-year-old former journalist running with the Socialist Forces Front, campaigned on a “vision for tomorrow,” and referenced human rights issues plaguing journalists, activists and critics of the government in Tebboune's Algeria. It's the first time since 1999 that his party, which enjoys strong support among ethnic minorities in central Algeria, has put forth a candidate.
Andrew Farrand, the Middle East and North Africa director at the geopolitical risk consultancy Horizon Engage, said both opposition candidates were more aimed at the 2025 legislative elections than the 2024 presidential contest. Because Algerian law funds political parties based on the number of seats they win in legislative elections, they hope campaigning will position them for a strong performance in 2025.