Continuing conflict blamed for outbreak of polio

GAZA — Born into the devastating Palestine-Israel conflict, 10-month-old Abdel-Rahman Abu El-Jedian started crawling early. Then one day, he froze, his left leg appeared to be paralyzed.

The baby boy is the first confirmed case of polio inside Gaza in 25 years, the World Health Organization said.

Abdel-Rahman was an energetic baby, said the child's mother, Nevine Abu El-Jedian, fighting back tears. "Suddenly, that was reversed. Suddenly, he stopped crawling, stopped moving, stopped standing up and stopped sitting," she added.

Healthcare workers in Gaza have been warning of the potential for a polio outbreak for months, as the humanitarian crisis unleashed by Israel's military campaign on the strip grows.

Before the conflict, Gaza's children were largely vaccinated against polio, the WHO said.

But Abdel-Rahman was not vaccinated because he was born just before Oct 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and Israel launched a retaliatory offensive on Gaza that forced his family to flee. Hospitals came under attack and regular vaccinations for newborns all but stopped.

The WHO said that for every case of paralysis because of polio, there are hundreds more who likely have been infected but are not showing symptoms. Most people who contract the disease do not experience symptoms and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure and when polio causes paralysis, it is usually permanent. If the paralysis affects breathing muscles, the disease can be fatal.

The Abu El-Jedian family, like many, now live in a crowded tent camp, near heaps of garbage and dirty wastewater flowing into the streets that aid workers describe as breeding grounds for diseases such as polio.

The family of 10 left their home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, moving from shelter to shelter until finally settling in a tent in the central city of Deir al-Balah.

"My son was not vaccinated because of the continued displacement," his mother said. "We are sheltering here in the tent in such health conditions where there is no medication, no capabilities, no supplements."

In order to vaccinate most of Gaza's children under the age of 10, UNICEF spokesperson Ammar Ammar said a cease-fire is necessary. The health agencies seek a pause in the fighting, which in recent days has sent thousands of Palestinian families fleeing under successive Israeli evacuation orders.

However, Israeli forces sent tanks deeper into Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday and launched strikes across the enclave, killing at least 34 Palestinians, according to medics.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said on Tuesday that forces had found a hostage, 52-year-old Kaid Farhan Alkadi, in a tunnel in southern Gaza "when he was alone", despite a previous assessment that militants "and explosives" were there.

He is one of 251 people abducted by Palestinian militants during the Oct 7 attack on southern Israel, 104 of whom are still captive in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

At Israel's Soroka Medical Center where Alkadi was taken to, hospital director Shlomi Kodesh told Agence France-Presse he "appears to be in good condition".

Agencies via Xinhua