Today's top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lebanon

A polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza has been postponed due to ongoing Israeli bombardments, mass displacement, and restricted access.
A polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza has been postponed due to ongoing Israeli bombardments, mass displacement and restricted access. Photo: UNRWA

Occupied Palestinian Territory

OCHA warns that Palestinians in North Gaza Governorate are experiencing extreme suffering as the Israeli siege continues.

OCHA reports harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction in the north. Civilians remain trapped under rubble, while the sick and wounded are deprived of life-saving healthcare. Families are without food, their homes destroyed, and they have no shelter. Nowhere is safe.

International humanitarian law demands that civilians have access to essentials for survival—food, shelter, medical care and other critical assistance. OCHA urgently appeals for rapid, unimpeded humanitarian relief to reach those in need.

In addition to endless waves of trauma cases, health partners report that the only remaining psychiatrist in North Gaza Governorate was recently displaced from Jabalya to Gaza city. They also say that stocks of psychotropic medications in the north are nearly depleted.

Humanitarian partners on the ground report that two water stations in North Gaza have stopped operating due to the lack of fuel. The suspension of service is affecting large areas, including the neighbourhoods of Al-Daraj, Al-Tuffah, Al-Zarga and Sheikh Radwan. A request earlier this week to deliver 23,000 litres of fuel to North Gaza Governorate was denied by Israeli authorities. 

From 6 October through yesterday, several attempts to get fuel to Gaza Governorate were also denied. Another mission was impeded and therefore unable to be accomplished. 

The UN and partners have also been compelled to postpone the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza due to the escalating violence, intense bombardment, mass displacement orders and the lack of assured humanitarian pauses across most of the north.

This final phase of the vaccination effort was supposed to begin today, with the aim of reaching more than 119,000 children across northern Gaza. The current conditions – including ongoing attacks on civilian infrastructure – continue to jeopardize people’s safety and movement in northern Gaza, making it impossible for families to safely bring their children for vaccination, and for health workers to operate.

It is imperative to stop the polio outbreak in Gaza, before more children are paralyzed and the virus spreads. To interrupt transmission, at least 90 per cent of all children in every community and neighbourhood must be vaccinated.

The vaccination campaign must be facilitated in the north through the implementation of humanitarian pauses.

Humanitarian partners say that all logistics, supplies and trained personnel were prepared to vaccinate children across the north with their second dose of the polio vaccine. However, given that the area currently approved for temporary humanitarian pauses was substantially reduced in geographic size from the previous round of the vaccination campaign – and is now limited only to Gaza city – many children in northern Gaza would have missed out on a second dose.

The UN and humanitarian partners continue efforts to provide life-saving assistance to people in northern Gaza. On 15 October, the World Food Programme (WFP) was able to deliver one convoy into Gaza City. However, the Israeli siege on North Gaza Governorate has prevented the agency from reaching people there for the past three weeks.

WFP warns that September and October saw some of the lowest levels of humanitarian aid entering Gaza since late 2023, alongside a drastic reduction in commercial cargo. In October, to date, only 20 per cent of the agency’s operational food needs have entered Gaza. A drastic shortage of supplies across Gaza has almost halted general food distribution.

WFP says very limited aid supplies have entered the south due to insecurity at the Kerem Shalom crossing point. There is a critical need for a safe and enabling environment for humanitarian operations and convoy movements into and within Gaza.

Lebanon

OCHA warns that ongoing attacks across Lebanon continue to cause death and destruction – with civilians killed, injured or forced to flee to safer areas.

Israeli airstrikes continued late into the night on Tuesday, targeting Bekaa, Nabatieh, South Lebanon and southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut.

Meanwhile, the death toll is rising following this week’s attack outside the Rafik Hariri University Hospital. Lebanese health authorities now put the number of people killed at 18, including four children. Another 60 were injured.

Since the escalation of hostilities a year ago, more than 2,500 people in Lebanon have been killed and nearly 12,000 injured, according to official figures.

The country’s health-care system has come under severe pressure. The World Health Organization has documented 47 attacks on medical facilities since October 8th, 2023 – with 95 health workers killed and 77 injured while on duty. Nearly half of the more than 200 primary health posts and clinics in conflict-affected areas have closed. Six hospitals are no longer operational, and four are only partially functioning.

Moreover, humanitarian partners supporting health, water, sanitation and hygiene are working to contain the risk of cholera, after the first case in Lebanon was reported since the end of the outbreak that happened between 2022 and 2023. They report that insecurity and restricted access in northern parts of Bekaa and Baalbek are constraining their efforts. 

UNICEF has warned that the ongoing bombardment is also impacting water infrastructure, with at least 28 water facilities damaged, affecting supplies for more than 360,000 people, primarily in southern Lebanon.  In a statement, the agency stressed that essential water services must be safeguarded. UNICEF said these systems are coming under increasing strain as more people are displaced.

Across the country, nearly 1,100 shelters for people displaced within Lebanon have been opened and now host more than 191,000 people – approximately one quarter of people displaced inside the country. Over 900 of these shelters – that’s 82 per cent – are already full. The highest concentration of collective shelters is in Beirut and Mount Lebanon Governorate.

For their part, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is operating nearly a dozen emergency shelters across Lebanon, with more than 3,700 displaced people registered there to date.

As hostilities continue, the UN and partners are doing everything possible to support people in need around the country.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is providing hot meals, food parcels, fresh bread, sandwiches, ready-to-eat parcels, and emergency cash assistance. WFP is also setting up kitchens and hot meal operations in northern and central Lebanon to prepare light meals for people seeking safety in shelters.