WHO says strike on Gaza polio vaccination centre wounds four children

Palestinian children queue outside a tent for the second phase of polio vaccination at Abdel Aziz Rantissi hospital in Gaza City’s Nasr district on November 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas
| Photo Credit: AFP

The World Health Organization said four children were among six people wounded on Saturday, November 2, 2024, in a strike on a polio vaccination centre in northern Gaza.

The WHO only restarted the second round of vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday after being forced to suspend them earlier because of Israeli bombardments.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the health centre was “in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed to allow vaccination to proceed” and the attack could put off parents of children needing a second vaccine to be covered. He did not specify who carried out the strike but Israel rejected a claim by a Gaza source that one of its drones fired missiles at the centre.

The Gaza civil defence agency source told AFP that it was “an Israeli quadcopter that fired two missiles which hit the wall of Sheikh Radwan clinic”.

An Israeli military statement said: “The IDF (army) is aware of claims regarding the injury of Palestinian civilians in the Sheikh Radwan vaccination center in the northern Gaza Strip.” It added: “Contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the IDF did not strike in the area at the specified time.”

“We have received an extremely concerning report that the Sheikh Radwan primary health care centre in northern Gaza was struck today while parents were bringing their children to the life-saving polio vaccination in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed,” Tedros said. “Six people, including four children, were injured,” he added.

The Israeli military has been pounding northern Gaza for weeks in a major offensive it says is aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.

UN agency chiefs have spoken of an “apocalyptic” situation in north Gaza which has been “denied basic aid and life-saving supplies”.

The vaccination drive began on September 1 with a successful first round, after the besieged Palestinian territory confirmed its first case of polio in 25 years.

“A WHO team was at the site just before” Saturday’s strike, Tedros said. “This attack, during humanitarian pause, jeopardises the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination,” he added.

The WHO says some 119,000 children in the north are awaiting a second dose, while 452,000 have been vaccinated in central and southern Gaza.

Typically spread through sewage and contaminated water, poliovirus is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal, mainly affecting children under five.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which started the Gaza war, resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 43,314 people in Gaza, a majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.