Brief Gaza Shooting Pause Begins to Allow Polio Vaccinations, then Israel's Biggest Union Went On Strike to Demand A Real Ceasefire

After arguing for months of a full-fledged ceasefire which could halt the murderous Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the government of Israel agreed this weekend to allow UN authorities to enter the country for an emergency polio vaccination program for children.

The triggering event which forced that decision jointly on Israel and Hamas was the diagnosis that a Palestinian baby in Gaza had come down with the first known case of polio in over 25 years.

Abdulrahman Rahman Abu Al-Jidya, a baby who with his family was forced to move multiple times in Gaza under varying evacuation orders from Israel Defense Forces, was less than a year old when he began to develop symptoms which baffled his parents. From his birth for most of that first year, despite access for either the mother or the child to regular medical care because almost all hospitals had been destroyed by Israel Defense Forces and the constant relocating, Abdulrahman seemed healthy. If anything, he was developing faster than expected and had begun to crawl a bit earlier than most babies.

At just ten months old, something changed for the child. Baby Abdul developed a partial paralysis in one leg, limiting his ability to crawl properly.

When properly supported doctors finally had a chance to examine him and run some tests, they learned Abdul had contracted a mutated form of the polio virus. It was also the first case of the illness seen in the Gaza Strip in over a quarter century.

Polio, the more commonly known name for poliomyelitis, is a highly contagious disease caused by the polio virus. It is a neurological disorder which in less severe cases causes sore throat, general and muscular fatigue, fever, headache, muscle stiffness, and vomiting. In more serious cases, it results in partial paralysis in multiple limbs, loss of reflexes, and flaccid muscles in various parts of the body. If the paralytic symptoms strike muscles associated with the heart or breathing, polio can kill.

There are treatments for it after diagnosis but no known cure. Those paralyzed with the illness usually remain that way for the rest of their life.

Prior to the cause of Abdul’s partial paralysis confirmed as polio, multiple health care organizations had warned there could be an outbreak of polio in Gaza as Israeli’s mass destruction of infrastructure including hospitals, and the killings and flight of medical professionals from Gaza grew in numbers.  

After United Nations and World Health Organization representatives investigated the case and potentially high risks to all in Gaza, both Israelis and Palestinians alike, a decision was made to call for Israel and Hamas to allow mass inoculation of an estimated 650,000 children throughout Gaza as quickly as possible. The urgency of the situation was called out because of concerns many besides Abdul have probably been infected but as of now have not developed symptoms.

Prior to Israel’s mass destruction of Gaza and the murders of over 40,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, most Palestinian children in Gaza were offered polio vaccines at a very young age. That helped keep any potential infection from the polio virus at bay, but that lifeline was eliminated by Israel within just a few months after this phase of the war began.

In preparation for the mass inoculations, UN representatives, working with the Gaza Health Ministry and the United Nations recently shipped 1.3 million doses of polio oral vaccines into the region. They were brought by truck via the Kerem Shalom checkpoint, located at the southern border between Egypt and Gaza.That border and this primary checkpoint there are controlled by Israeli Defense Forces.

Shortly after the vaccines arrived in Gaza, they were shipped to a cold storage location in Deir al-Balah. That facility is situated in central Gaza some 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) south of Gaza City. The location was chosen strategically so as to make it easier to distribute throughout all of Gaza as efficiently as possible, while keeping the vaccines still chilled even as they are sent out to vaccination centers.

Another 400,000 doses of the vaccine will soon be entering the country, to make a total of 1.7 million doses available immediately. More may be coming to Gaza later but that has not been confirmed yet.

According to the WHO, children vaccinated against polio this way typically require three to four doses of the vaccine. Each dose consists of two drops. Based on this dosage and three doses per child, the initial 1.7 million doses would protect roughly 570,000 children, a number just under the target the UN and WHO have set as their ultimate goal.

Trucks monitored by the Gaza Health Ministry, the United Nations, and Israeli Defense Forces began fanning out to a total of approximately 160 vaccination locations in Gaza beginning the end of last week. Most of these sites are situated in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, located respectively slightly to the north and south of Rafah, the largest southern City in Gaza. The Health Ministry says this is where the population of young Palestinian children is at its highest.

According to a spokesperson for UNICEF, the agency within the UN which is coordinating this part of the effort, the trucks are being driven to their target location by a team of approximately 2,000 medical volunteers.

The first children in Gaza to be part of this program received their vaccinations on August 31, as sites began to open.

On September 1, military conflicts in Gaza were shut down temporarily to allow the inoculations to go through. Though the Israeli Defense Forces did not allow ordinary daily life to resume during this time, it is estimated the shootings and shelling of Palestinians in the contrary were paused in multiple areas for up to nine hours yesterday.

The full vaccination program is planned to run for three days, completing by September 3 at the latest.

Status of the More General Ceasefire Negotiations

In parallel with these developments, Egypt, Qatar, and the U.S. are collaborating on a last-ditch ceasefire proposal which they plan to offer to Hamas and Israel within days. It is not expected to be much different from the past, with little built in to ensure a long-term end to the conflict or a balanced consideration of the needs of both Israel and Hamas.

Though the proposal itself will not be that new, what seems to be shifting fast is the pressures Israel’s citizens are putting on Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire which will bring Israeli hostages home to their families. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the latest wave of protests about this just last night, across all of Israel. A full 100,000 marched in downtown Tel Aviv last night as part of that.

A second major point of conflict for the prime minister is that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is now seen as strongly opposed to Netanyahu’s continuing rejection of all ceasefire plans, along with his manipulation of the public narrative to make it look like it is only Hamas which is stonewalling reaching concurrence on a proposal. Yesterday Gallant went on record as the only Cabinet Minister to call for the country to agree to release control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the name for a major part of the border between Gaza and Egypt, since that release is now a major sticking point in the ongoing negotiations. Israel’s control of that border is in direct violation to treaties which have been in effect between Israel and Egypt for over 40 years.

Adding to those pressures is an even more formidable assault from within awhich began earlier today, September 2, Israel time. That’s when the Histadrut, the largest workers union in Israel, began a nationwide general strike by its membership in support of a ceasefire. The union is also demanding Netanyahu stop putting his political survival ahead of making what the union sees as an important step forward the country needs to make.

In announcing the general strike, Arnon Bar-David, the head of the Histadrut trade union federation, issued a harsh message highly critical of Netanyahu.

“We are no longer one country. This must be stopped,” Bar-David said. “The state of Israel must be returned to normal. We are getting body bags instead of a deal. I have come to the conclusion that only our intervention might move those who need to be moved.”

The Histadrut strike is also strongly supported by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, the group representing families who have relatives currently held hostage by Hamas. The Forum is responsible for coordinating many of the nationwide protests demanding Netanyahu get those hostages back by peaceful means.

The first casualty in the strike was the complete shutdown of Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv as of 8 AM local time on September 2.

With Histadrut having approximately 800,000 members, or about 18% of Israel’s net workforce of 4.5 million, the union believes its strike will force almost most businesses in the nation to close for some time.

It might also even catch Netayahu's attention.