The United Nations children’s agency has said that a polio vaccination campaign to inoculate more than 640,000 children in Gaza is surpassing expectations at the end of the first phase of the programme.
Describing the campaign as a “rare bright spot” in almost 11 months of war, Unicef said that 189,000 children had been reached so far as more than 500 teams were deployed across central Gaza this week.
It said Israel and Hamas observed limited pauses in the fighting to facilitate the campaign, with UN agencies involved now hoping to expand the campaign to the harder-hit north and south of the territory for the next two phases.
I agree with all of that. It’s tough to talk about because I really hate to give any impression of moral equivalence. I think the leaders on both sides are equivalent in their hearts, but in actions and outcomes there’s simply no contest. Israel’s killers are much, much, much more brutally effective. At least several hundred times so in numbers. Very possibly a thousand times so.
When I speak of Hamas, it’s largely for the purpose of trying to understand their behavior.