It was a race against the clock. At 6 a.m., hostilities would pause in one part of Gaza and health workers rushed to gather polio vaccines from places where they could be safely refrigerated, put them into cold storage boxes, and head to the field. They then would vaccinate as many children as possible.
They were up against a deadline — Israel and Hamas agreed to only a partial pause in hostilities between Sept. 1 and 12 so health workers could conduct a vaccination campaign after the first case of polio was confirmed in the Gaza Strip after it had been free of the disease for 25 years.
During each day of the campaign, the humanitarian pause lifted at 2 p.m., according to Louise Wateridge, senior communications officer at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, meaning health workers had to wrap up by around 1 p.m. so they could safely return to their families.