Over 58,600 children in northern Gaza received the final dose of the polio vaccine on Saturday, the United Nations said, as health workers race to vaccinate thousands more before the campaign wraps up on Monday.
The operation to deliver a second dose — which is necessary to effectively stop the transmission of polio — started in mid-October. It was meant to last a couple of weeks. But on Oct. 23, the vaccination campaign was postponed in northern Gaza due to safety concerns over Israeli airstrikes and mass evacuation orders.
"These conditions made it impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination and for vaccination teams to perform their duties," the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF said in a statement on Friday.
Health officials announced that the vaccine campaign would resume over the weekend in northern Gaza — but Israeli officials have only agreed this time to humanitarian pauses in fighting in Gaza City, arguing that other areas in the north have been largely evacuated.
For weeks, northern Gaza has been besieged by Israeli forces on the assertion that Hamas regrouped there.
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