The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the Strip has become a polio epidemic zone, warning that the anti-epidemic program will not be sufficient unless the aggression is ended.

The ministry said in a statement on Monday, "After many years of eradicating polio in Palestine, and as a result of the miserable condition that the residents of the Gaza Strip have reached as a result of the brutal Israeli occupation aggression that has deprived the residents of usable water, destroyed the sanitation infrastructure, caused the accumulation of thousands of tons of garbage, led to food insecurity, and the population has been crowded into forced displacement sites, and with the discovery of the CVPV2 polio virus in sewage water in the Khan Yunis and Middle governorates, we declare the Gaza Strip a polio epidemic area."

It stressed that the epidemic poses a health threat to the residents of the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries and a setback to the global polio eradication program.

The ministry warned that the anti-epidemic programme launched in partnership with relevant international institutions, especially UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, will not be sufficient unless there is immediate intervention to end the aggression and find radical solutions to the problem of the lack of potable water and personal hygiene means such as detergents and disinfectants, repairing sewage networks and transporting tons of garbage and solid waste.