Israel launches polio vaccination campaign for soldiers in Gaza, nothing for Palestinians 

On Sunday, the Israeli army launched a campaign to vaccinate its soldiers who are carrying out military operations in the Gaza Strip to avoid the infection of poliovirus, while ignoring the Palestinian population. 

In a press statement, the Israeli army claimed it conducted sample tests in different areas where remnants of the contagious poliovirus were discovered via drinking or oral contact with contaminated water. As a result, the Israeli army claimed it decided, in coordination with the Israeli ministry of health, to vaccinate its armed forces via a campaign by its Technology and Logistics Division.

Israel's vaccination campaign occurs after an official announcement issued by the Palestinian health ministry said it discovered the spread of the poliovirus in the wastewater in the war-torn, besieged Gaza Strip. 

Palestinian medical sources told The New Arab that poliovirus emerges due to unclean water and the spread of wastewater in Gaza due to Israel's war. 

The medical sources further said that the ongoing Israeli attacks destroyed "more than 60 percent of the infrastructure and stopped all desalination plants and sewage in the streets have contributed to spreading the diseases in Gaza."

"The coastal enclave has been suffering from the lack of medicine and even vaccines that would be enough for the local people to avoid the spread of the poliovirus," said sources. 

Meanwhile, Israel claimed "it sent about 300,000 polio vaccines to Gaza in cooperation with international organisations since the beginning of the war [...] which is enough for more than a million citizens in Gaza."

"All the Israeli claims are not true [...] it seems that the Israeli authorities decided to kill all the Palestinians in Gaza, either through the strikes or diseases and starvation," Ismail Thawabta, the director of the Palestinian government media office in Gaza, remarked to TNA. 

"The virus in sewage portends a real health disaster and exposes thousands of residents to the risk of contracting polio," he added. 

He called on the international community and UN health organisations to pressure Israel to end its war on the Palestinian people and provide enough vaccines for all. 

Since 7 October, the Israeli army launched a large-scale "plausible genocide" on the besieged coastal enclave, after a Hamas-led Palestinian fighters attack on the Israeli military bases and civilian settlements within and around the Gaza envelope. 

Throughout the ten months of war, Israeli forces attacked most of Gaza's civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and residential houses, forcing about two million people to be displaced and live in unsanitary environments. 

In a bid to reduce the impact of diseases, UN organisations, including the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, and UNRWA continue to work with all public health authorities on the ground, to mitigate the impact on the health of populations in Gaza, according to the health ministry in Gaza. 

"The ongoing crisis continues to pose a significant challenge to the ability to implement full disease surveillance and outreach with immunization services," the ministry explained. 

According to a recent Lancet study, the death toll in Gaza could be at least 186,000 dead due to direct and indirect impacts of Israel's war on Gaza.