A 10-month-old child from central Gaza tested positive for polio last week, with confirmation obtained from tests conducted in Jordan, the Palestinian health ministry announced.

"With polio beginning to spread through the Gaza Strip, and humanitarian and health agencies overextended, an immediate humanitarian pause and a long-term peace deal is imperative," Tor Wennesland, special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said.

Wennesland noted that individual and collective efforts to manage the current crises in the Middle East “are stretched beyond their limits.”  

“Despite the staggering toll on human life, reverberating violence throughout the region, and displacement of over 200,000 Palestinians over the past month, the UN agencies and humanitarian organizations deliver life-saving assistance ‘with remarkable courage’ through all available crossing points,” he added.

During Thursday’s open briefing on the Palestinian question, Wennesland told the Security Council that the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the first case of polio in 25 years.

In response, 1.6 million vaccine doses for the disease have been released amid preparation for a vaccination campaign scheduled on 31 August.

Moussa Abed from the health ministry in Gaza emphasized that a “safe environment” is crucial for reaching the campaign’s goal of vaccinating 95 percent of children under 10.

Gaza reported detecting type 2 poliovirus in wastewater samples in June, highlighting a significant public health threat. 

The poliovirus, which spreads easily through sewage and contaminated water, predominately affects children under five, potentially causing deformities, paralysis, and even death.

International response
 

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF have outlined comprehensive plans to vaccinate 640,000 children across Gaza. However, conducting such a large-scale campaign amid persistent military activity is challenging.

 “Outside this room, I am surrounded by overwhelming destruction; more than 1.9 million people have been displaced and are moving through streets filled with rubble, rubbish, and wastewater,” Louisa Baxter, operations lead at Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit, Gaza, said briefing the council from Deir al Balah where Israel has issued an evacuation order.

 “As we speak, polio is spreading in Gaza and it will not wait at the inspection gate at Kerem Shalom or the customs desk at Ben Gurion airport,” she added, stressing that polio is a threat to children everywhere.

 “Israel has destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure, while effectively preventing clean water from entering the Gaza Strip,” Baxter continued.

Although polio is easily prevented by a vaccine, vaccination services have also stopped over the last 10 months of war and 750 health staff have been killed since October 2023 while less than a quarter of hospitals remain functional, she explained.  

“This decimated health system is wholly unprepared to face this new polio crisis,” she added, calling for “two sustained cessations of hostilities, no less than one week for each phase,” to commence immediately.  

All attacks on humanitarian and medical personnel must end and people must be able to bring children to vaccination points safely. If the conflict parties cannot reach a ceasefire, “then it falls to this council and its members to demand and enforce one, including by adopting measures to halt the transfer of weapons to Israel and Palestinian groups,” she stressed.

"Polio will not make the distinction between Palestinian and Israeli children and delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children," Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, posted on X.

"Since the war began and thanks to UNRWA medical teams’ efforts, 80 percent of children across Gaza have received vaccines against different childhood diseases," he added.
 
Director-General of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also posted on X, “No one is safe, nowhere is safe. People have barely any options left, after being uprooted multiple times, to find shelter, health and other services in an already crammed and challenging environment.”
 
"The close proximity of evacuation orders to medical points and hospitals in the affected areas places these health facilities at risk of becoming non-functional due to insecurity and lack of safe access for patients, health workers, ambulances and partners to resupply them. This must be avoided at all costs," he added.
 
"Protection and dignity, not repeated uprooting, is what Gaza’s people desperately need now," Ghebreyesus stressed.

"It's extremely difficult to undertake a vaccination campaign of this scale and volume under a sky full of air strikes," said Juliette Touma, communications director for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Touma, who worked on polio response during wars in Iraq and Syria, said that "the return of polio to a place where it's been eradicated says quite a lot."

The UN's plan involves deploying 2,700 health workers in 708 teams, managed by the WHO, to execute the vaccination initiative, according to Richard Peeperkorn, WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories.

UNICEF is overseeing the cold supply chain logistics necessary for the distribution of vaccines, as stated by spokesman Jonathan Crickx.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has advocated for two separate seven-day ceasefires to allow for vaccine distribution. 

Looming situation
 

Since 7 October, Israel’s brutal war on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 40,265 people, mostly children and women, with another 93,144 wounded. 

These figures accompany a dire humanitarian situation with widespread displacement as most of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been forced by the Israeli occupation army to relocate at least once during the war.

Gaza's health system has been severely impacted, with only 16 of the original 36 hospitals still operational. Of these, just 11 have the capability to maintain the required cold chain for vaccines. 

The vaccines will initially be stored at a UN central hub in Gaza before being distributed to various health facilities and UNRWA shelters.