The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the Biden administration to force Israel to immediately end its genocidal attacks in Gaza to allow a polio vaccination campaign to be conducted after the first case of that disease was detected in a Palestinian child. According to medical personnel the poliovirus was found in a 10-month-old child in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah.
[NOTE: In July, CAIR called on the Biden administration to take action to prevent the spread of polio in Gaza after the virus has been detected in wastewater after the sewage system was devasted by Israel’s ongoing U.S.-enabled genocide.]
UNICEF said it will seek to vaccinate more than 640,000 children in Gaza this month and next. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and the World Health Organization also called for a halt to the fighting. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the “ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.” Mercy Corps says some 50,000 babies born since the genocide began have not been immunized against polio.
The disease, which is highly infection and mostly impacts children, has appeared due to Israel’s systematic destruction of the civilian and medical infrastructure in Gaza. Israel has launched a vaccination campaign for its own military personnel.
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“President Biden’s enabling of the systematic destruction of almost all civilian infrastructure in Gaza has resulted in the reappearance of a disease that could be devastating to Palestinian children. The Biden administration must demand an immediate halt to the Israeli genocide so that a vaccination campaign can be carried out without threat of daily massacres, such as today’s slaughter by Israel of an extended Palestinian family, including eight children and four women.”
Last week, CAIR responded to the death toll in Gaza rising to over 40,000 by asking President Biden “how many more” Palestinian civilians have to die before he takes action.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered in Israeli attacks, with many more buried under rubble and threatened by illness. The majority of these deaths have been women and children. Experts say the death toll may be “vastly underestimated.” The medical journal The Lancet reported that some 186,000 Palestinians may have died since Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Some 90 percent of Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced, often multiple times.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com