Israel Launches Massive Polio Vaccination Drive to Save Palestinian Children in Gaza

Israel launched a massive polio vaccination drive this week to inoculate Palestinian children in Gaza against the deadly and crippling disease, which was detected in water supplies in the territory earlier this year, during the war.

As Breitbart News reported in July:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday that it had discovered poliovirus contaminating water in Gaza, and had therefore brought in vaccines, both for soldiers and the general population. Vaccination for soldiers would be voluntary, it said.

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Polio has been eradicated in much of the world. It can cause paralysis and death. There have been fervent attempts to eradicate it, many led by the Rotary International voluntary organization, often through vaccines administered orally.

As of last month, Israel had provided Gaza with enough polio vaccines for one million people — half of the local population. (The IDF said that soldiers would also be offered polio vaccines on a voluntary basis.)

On Thursday, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters that 28,004 Palestinian children in northern Gaza had been vaccinated on Wednesday alone, and that 109,033 had been vaccinated during the three-day period that started Monday. The vaccination effort will now shift to southern Gaza.

Left unsaid: if Israel’s intent in Gaza were to commit “genocide,” as South Africa and other hostile nations have alleged, it would not save Palestinian children — as the Hamas leaders who serve as Palestinians’ own leaders cower underground from the war they started.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.