UN determined to stay in Gaza, Polio vaccination campaign – Highlights of the noon briefing by Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General – 27 August 2024

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OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY

Gilles Michaud, the Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security, has released a statement in which he makes it clear that the UN is determined to stay in Gaza to deliver life-saving aid for and with Palestinian civilians. Humanitarian aid delivery continues – a tremendous feat given that the UN is operating at the upper-most peripheries of tolerable risk.

Mr. Michaud underscores that humanitarians have been in the crosshairs throughout this crisis, which is by far the deadliest on record for the United Nations. Mr. Michaud also makes it clear, like most Palestinians in Gaza, the UN is running out of safe spaces for its own staff.

The timing of the IDF evacuation orders, with just a few hours’ notice to move more than 200 UN staff out of their offices and living places in Deir Al Balah could not be worse, Mr. Michaud added, referring to the start of the massive polio vaccination campaign scheduled for next week, in which a large number of staff will be needed to enter the Gaza Strip and to work on the campaign.

For the women and men who risk their lives to deliver humanitarian aid and need a safe and consistent place from which to work, Mr. Michaud reiterates his call on all parties to respect international law and their commitments under the UN Charter to ensure the safety and security of UN premises.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that in response to the latest evacuation orders yesterday, they were able to distribute some tents as temporary shelter. However, stocks are running low and are limited.

Staff of the World Food Programme (WFP) had to relocate to other UN premises and are being forced to leave their offices and guest houses in Deir al Balah. Despite these challenges, the WFP continues to deliver food assistance.

In addition to the loss of warehouses and other humanitarian premises due to evacuation orders, it remains difficult to move around the south of the Gaza Strip due to the severe overcrowding and continuous displacement.

The access of UN humanitarian partners to northern Gaza is particularly challenging as it requires coordination with the Israeli authorities and passage through an internal checkpoint.

The plans to fuel hospitals in that area have now resulted in access being denied five times in the past week, leaving some hospitals without new provision for fuel for over ten days. The dependency on fuel to run back-up generators is complete, as the Israeli authorities cut electricity provision from the Gaza Strip back in October.

On the health front, following the delivery of polio vaccines into Gaza, UN staff on the ground are now positioning them in 11 health centres and are training over 1,000 medical workers and volunteers to participate in the campaign.

GAZA/POLIO VACCINE

Also, a few more details on polio, as we have seen some disinformation regarding the polio vaccine that plan to use in Gaza, and I want to make the following clear.

The safest and most effective way to protect children against the polio virus, regardless of the variant, is to vaccinate them.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are planning to roll out a campaign in Gaza to prevent the spread of the variant type 2 poliovirus. This will be done in two rounds, each consisting of two drops of oral polio vaccine type 2.

This vaccine is safe, it is effective, and it offers top-quality protection. It is a vaccine globally recommended for variant type 2 poliovirus outbreaks by WHO.

The vaccine will be provided to more than 640,000 children under ten years of age, with the aim of reaching at least 95 per cent of the children in each round.

Since the rollout began in March of 2021, more than 1.2 billion doses of the vaccine have been used to protect children in over 40 countries over type 2 variants of polio.

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