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Born and Died During Gaza War, Infant Twins Are Buried in Rafah

Rania Abu Anza (C) the mother of twin babies Naeem and Wissam, killed in an overnight Israeli air strike, mourns their death ahead of their burial in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3, 2024, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continues. (AFP)
Rania Abu Anza (C) the mother of twin babies Naeem and Wissam, killed in an overnight Israeli air strike, mourns their death ahead of their burial in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3, 2024, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continues. (AFP)
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Born and Died During Gaza War, Infant Twins Are Buried in Rafah

Rania Abu Anza (C) the mother of twin babies Naeem and Wissam, killed in an overnight Israeli air strike, mourns their death ahead of their burial in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3, 2024, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continues. (AFP)
Rania Abu Anza (C) the mother of twin babies Naeem and Wissam, killed in an overnight Israeli air strike, mourns their death ahead of their burial in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3, 2024, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continues. (AFP)

Born a few weeks into the Gaza war, infant twins Wissam and Naeem Abu Anza were buried on Sunday, the youngest of 14 members of the same family whom Gaza health authorities say were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah overnight.

Their mother, Rania Abu Anza, held one of the twins, its tiny body wrapped in a white shroud, to her cheek and stroked its head during the funeral on Sunday. A mourner held the second baby close by, pale blue pyjamas visible beneath a shroud.

"My heart is gone," wept Abu Anza, whose husband was also killed, as mourners comforted her. She resisted when asked to release the body of one of the babies ahead of burial. "Leave her with me," she said, in a low voice.

The twins - a boy and a girl - were among five children killed in the strike on a house in Rafah, according to the health ministry in Gaza. Abu Anza said she had given birth to them - her first children - after 11 years of marriage.

"We were asleep, we were not shooting and we were not fighting. What is their fault? What is their fault, what is her fault?" Abu Anza said.

"How will I continue to live now?"

Relatives said the twins had been born some four months ago, about a month into the war which began on Oct. 7, when Hamas stormed Israel, in an attack that killed 1,200 people and resulted in another 253 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 30,000 people in the Gaza Strip since then, according to Gaza health authorities, laying waste to the territory and uprooting most of its population.

The members of the Abu Anza family killed in the strike were lined up in black body bags. A man wept over the body of one of the dead, a child wearing pyjamas. "God have mercy on her, God have mercy on her," said another man, consoling him.

Abu Anza said she had been wishing for a ceasefire before Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month which begins around March 10.

US President Joe Biden has expressed hope one will be agreed by then. "We were preparing for Ramadan, how am I supposed to live my life? How?" she said.

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What Is Known About Polio’s Return to the Gaza Strip 

Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
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What Is Known About Polio’s Return to the Gaza Strip 

Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)
Displaced kids sort through trash at a street in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP)

Health authorities in the Gaza Strip confirmed the first case of polio in 25 years earlier this month.

The infection and subsequent partial paralysis of the nearly year-old Abdul-Rahman Abu Al-Jidyan has hastened plans for a mass vaccination campaign of children across the Palestinian enclave starting on Sept. 1.

Three-day pauses in fighting in each of Gaza's three zones have been agreed by Israel and Hamas to allow thousands of UN workers to administer vaccines.

ORIGINS

The same strain that later infected the Palestinian baby, from the type 2 vaccine-derived polio virus that has also been detected in wastewater in some developed countries in recent years, was detected in July in six sewage samples taken in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

It is not clear how the strain arrived in Gaza but genetic sequencing showed that it resembles a variant found in Egypt that could have been introduced from September 2023, the WHO said.

The UN health body says that a drop in routine vaccinations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including Gaza, has contributed to its re-emergence.

Polio vaccination coverage, primarily conducted through routine immunization, was estimated at 99% in 2022 and fell to 89% in 2023. Health workers say the closure of many hospitals in Gaza, often because of Israeli strikes or restrictions on fuel, has contributed to lower vaccination rates. Israel blames Hamas, saying they use hospitals for military purposes.

Aid workers say poor sanitation conditions in Gaza where open sewers and trash piles are commonplace after nearly 11 months of war have created favorable conditions for its spread.

MASS VACCINATIONS

Israel's military and the Palestinian armed group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting to allow for the first round of vaccinations.

The campaign is due to start in central Gaza on Sunday with three consecutive daily pauses in fighting, then move to southern Gaza, where there would be another three-day pause, followed by northern Gaza. There is an agreement to extend the pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.

The vaccines, which were released from global emergency stockpiles, have already arrived in Gaza and are due to be issued to 640,000 children under 10 years of age.

They will be given orally by some 2,700 health care workers at medical centers and by mobile teams moving among Gaza's hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war, UN aid workers say.

The World Health Organization says that a successful roll-out requires at least 95% coverage.

The Israeli military's humanitarian unit (COGAT) said that the vaccination campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military "as part of the routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach the medical centers where the vaccinations will be administered".

A second round is planned in late September.

RISKS

The Gaza case which is vaccine-derived is seen as a setback for the global polio fight which has driven down cases by more than 99% since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns.

Wild polio is now only endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan although more than 30 countries are still listed by the WHO as subject to outbreaks, including Gaza's neighbors Egypt and Israel.

The World Health Organization has warned of the further spread of polio within Gaza and across borders given the poor health and hygiene conditions there.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the faecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis and death in young children with those under 2 years old most at risk. In nearly all cases it has no symptoms, making it hard to detect.