UNICEF spokeswoman in Gaza Rosalia Paulin warned of the consequences of more than 119,000 children in the northern Gaza Strip not receiving the second dose of the polio vaccine before mid-November.

"If we miss this deadline, the immunity of children who received the first dose will decline rapidly," Pauline told UN News.

She pointed out that the three UN agencies participating in the vaccination campaign, namely the World Health Organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and UNICEF, along with the Palestinian Ministry of Health, were forced to delay the start of the third and final phase of the second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the north.

She said that in a vaccination campaign, we need several things. We need safety for health care workers, for social motivators, for families who come to vaccinate their children. We need people to be stable for the campaign to be successful.

“Because of the ongoing escalation of the bombing, health workers are exhausted. Hundreds of people have been killed over the past weeks. Many more have been injured. Hospitals have been bombed and besieged. So the conditions are not right to start this second phase of the vaccination campaign in Gaza,” she added.

The first round of vaccinations, which ran from 1 to 12 September, successfully vaccinated 559,161 children, or an estimated 95 percent of the children targeted by the campaign. The second round began in central and southern Gaza on 14 October, but failed to reach children in the north of the Strip.

She warned that some 120,000 children in Gaza are at "grave risk." She also said that this poses a risk not only to those children aged 10 and under, "but also to children in the wider region."

For 25 days now, the occupation army has continued its genocide in the northern Gaza Strip, specifically Jabalia and Beit Lahia, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world, as it continues to bomb civilians, blow up their homes, and prevent the entry of aid, food, water, medicine, and fuel, resulting in the deaths of more than a thousand martyrs, thousands of wounded, and dozens of missing persons.

The occupation forces continue their aggression on the Gaza Strip, by land, sea and air, since October 7, 2023, which resulted in the martyrdom of 43,020 citizens and the injury of 101,110 others, the majority of whom are children and women, in an incomplete toll, as thousands of missing people are still under the rubble.