Palestinians say Israel struck Gaza clinic during polio campaign; army denies it
Cairo, Nov 3: An Israeli drone strike on a clinic in northern Gaza — where children were being vaccinated for polio — wounded six people including four children, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military denied responsibility.
The alleged strike occurred Saturday in northern Gaza, which has been encircled by Israeli forces and largely isolated for the past year. Israel has been carrying out another offensive there in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands.
It was not possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. Israeli forces have repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, saying Hamas uses them for militant purposes, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials. Hamas fighters are also operating in the north, battling Israeli forces.
Dr Munir al-Boursh, director general of the Gaza Health Ministry, told The Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan clinic in Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, just a few minutes after a United Nations delegation left the facility.
The World Health Organisation and the UN children's agency, known as UNICEF, which are jointly carrying out the polio vaccination campaign, expressed concern over the reported strike.
“The reports of this attack are even more disturbing as the Sheikh Radwan Clinic is one of the health points where parents can get their children vaccinated,” said Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for UNICEF.
“Today's attack occurred while the humanitarian pause was still in effect, despite assurances given that the pause would be respected from 6 am to 4 pm.”
Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said that “contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the (Israeli military) did not strike in the area at the specified time.”
In southern Gaza on Sunday, an Israeli strike hit a group of people gathered outside in an eastern district of Khan Younis, killing at least eight Palestinians, including four children and a woman, the Gaza Health Ministry's emergency services said. The city's Nasser Hospital, which received most of the bodies, confirmed the figures.
A scaled-down campaign to administer a second dose of the polio vaccine began Saturday in parts of northern Gaza. It had been postponed from Oct 23 due to lack of access, Israeli bombings and mass evacuation orders, and the lack of assurances for humanitarian pauses, a UN statement said.
The administration of the first dose was carried out in September across the Gaza Strip, including areas of northern Gaza that are now completely sealed off. Health officials said the campaign's first round, and the administration of the second dose across central and southern Gaza, were successful.
At least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from areas of north Gaza toward Gaza City in the past few weeks, but around 15,000 children under the age of 10 remain in northern towns, including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, which are inaccessible, according to the UN.
The final phase of the polio vaccination campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children in the north with a second dose of the oral polio vaccine, the agencies said, but “achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints”.
They say 90% of children in every community must be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.
The campaign was launched after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralysed in the leg. The World Health Organisation said the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren't showing symptoms.
The war began on Oct 7, 2023, when Hamas-led group stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel's offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children.
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2 Indian nationals part of crew of luxury cruise ship that reported hantavirus outbreak
London (PTI): At least two Indian nationals are part of the crew of the Dutch vessel MV Hondius which reported a hantavirus outbreak with five confirmed cases and three deaths so far, according to the BBC.
The luxury cruise ship, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, began its journey on April 1 from Argentina’s Ushuaia and is expected to arrive in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10.
About 150 passengers and crew from 28 countries were initially aboard the luxury cruise, but dozens disembarked on the island of St Helena on April 24, according to the report.
Of the 28 nationalities onboard, 38 are from the Philippines, 31 from the UK, 23 from the US, 16 from the Netherlands, 14 from Spain, nine from Germany, six from Canada, and two crew members from India, among others, the BBC reported.
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The World Health Organization said on Thursday that five of the eight suspected hantavirus cases had been confirmed.
A 69-year-old Dutch woman, confirmed to have the virus, has died; her Dutch husband and a German woman were also among the fatalities. Their cases are being investigated.
The UN health agency has said the outbreak is not the start of a pandemic.
Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at WHO, told a news briefing that the situation is not the same as six years ago with Covid-19 because hantavirus spreads through “close, intimate contact”.
Van Kerkhove said “this is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently”. She said authorities had asked “everyone to wear a mask” on board the MV Hondius.
Those in contact with or caring for suspected cases, she added, should “wear a higher level of personal protective equipment”.
Hantavirus typically spreads from rodents - but in the latest outbreak the transmission between people was documented for the first time, the WHO said.
Meanwhile, health authorities are racing to trace dozens of people who have recently disembarked from the Dutch vessel MV Hondius.
Oceanwide Expedition said 29 passengers, of at least 12 different nationalities, had left the MV Hondius in St Helena, the British Overseas Territory.
It also said the body of one deceased person—now known to be a Dutch man - was taken off the vessel.
Seven of those who left the cruise liner were British nationals.
