On a recent morning, a father and his 9-year-old daughter Zahra, headed to a vaccination site, for her to receive her second dose of protection from polio. But she couldn’t walk there — after she was trapped under rubble when their home was shelled, her broken leg had to be kept straight with steel pins. Instead, her father carried her on his back for about an hour.
Polio has been eradicated from Gaza for a quarter of a century. But the conflict over the last year and ensuing unsanitary conditions have brought the disease back, with one confirmed case reported in August.
Parents in Gaza dressed their children up to receive the vaccinations — putting them in bow ties and placing ribbons in their hair. Zahra wore a beautiful black and red dress and had her hair braided, said Rosalia Bollen, communication specialist at UNICEF in Palestine, but her leg “looked so incredibly painful.”