NEW YORK - The World Health Organization said Friday that the necessary second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza would finally begin on Saturday, after Israeli bombing halted the drive.
The announcement that the final phase of polio vaccination in the Gaza Strip can go ahead came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel to facilitate a quick completion of the campaign.
The vaccination drive began on September 1 after the besieged Palestinian territory confirmed its first case of polio in 25 years.
A first round of inoculation was completed across the Gaza Strip and the second round -- essential to build up immunity -- began as scheduled on October 14, first in central Gaza, then the south, aided by so-called humanitarian pauses in the fighting.
But the WHO postponed the final four-day phase in the north, which was set to begin on 23 October, due to "intense bombardment" making the conditions on the ground "impossible".
Israel launched a major air and ground assault in northern Gaza last month, saying it wanted to stop Hamas militants regrouping there.
- 119,000 children left waiting -
"Polio vaccination in northern Gaza is ready to resume tomorrow," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday on X.
"We are assured of the necessary humanitarian pause in Gaza City to conduct the campaign.
"Unfortunately, the area covered is substantially reduced compared to the first round of vaccination, which will leave some children unprotected and at higher risk of infection."
In its original reasoning for postponing vaccinations in the north, the UN health agency said the approved area for humanitarian pauses had been cut down to Gaza City alone, meaning many children would have missed their second dose.
This would "seriously jeopardise efforts to stop the transmission of poliovirus in Gaza", it had said.
Some 119,000 children in the north are awaiting their second dose, while 452,000 have been vaccinated in central and southern Gaza.
The WHO says a minimum of two separate doses of oral vaccine are needed to interrupt poliovirus transmission, requiring 90 percent of all children aged under 10 to be vaccinated in a given community.
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 the age of five.
- Malnutrition concerns -
Israel launched a renewed offensive to root out Palestinian fighters in northern Gaza in recent weeks.
On Thursday, Tedros condemned an Israeli attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza earlier in the day which caused injuries and damaged recently-delivered lifesaving supplies.
WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said that "because of the attacks", the hospital's malnutrition stabilisation centre had closed, meaning there was no such facility remaining in the north.
"Before that occurred, we were seeing an increasing number, month on month, of children with severe acute malnutrition who were requiring treatment," she told a media briefing on Friday.
"We've not really seen any food aid enter north Gaza since 2 October. People are running out of ways to cope. The food systems have collapsed and the opportunity to care for those who are at the most critical stage is not there any more," she said.
"Over 86 percent of the population across Gaza are experiencing high levels of food insecurity.
"It's always the children who suffer the most."
Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel last year triggered the war and resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory bombardment and ground war have killed at least 43,259 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry, figures the United Nations considers reliable.
By Robin Millard