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Two years since conflict broke out in Gaza, hear from two Palestine Red Crescent health workers facing unimaginable challenges and putting their lives on the line to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Editor’s note: This article was written prior to the latest ceasefire coming into effect on 10 October, which IFRC welcomes and hopes will lead to lasting peace. We call for a massive scaling up of aid and international support for Gaza to alleviate the catastrophic conditions people have endured for the past two years.
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It’s April 2023 in the Gaza Strip. Parents are forming an orderly queue outside their neighbourhood health clinic, waiting to get their babies their life-saving immunizations. Demand is high, but the system is running smoothly and vaccines are readily available. The jabs prompt tears here and there, but parents calmly comfort their children and get their records stamped—heading home knowing that their little ones have been gifted the hope of a healthier future.
Fast forward two years and the picture could not be more different.
It’s April 2025 in the Gaza Strip. The neighbourhood health clinic has been destroyed. Families have been forced to flee multiple times due to the ongoing hostilities. Parents are exhausted and weak from malnutrition, giving the precious little food they can get hold of to their children. They desperately want to get them vaccinated, but the journey to the nearest functioning clinic is fraught with danger. Mothers and fathers find themselves asking: do we risk diseases today, or bombs? They try their best to soothe their children’s tears, but they are constant now.
It's in this stark new reality that Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) medical teams and volunteers have been striving to keep their communities healthy and safe.
Since April 2025, they’ve been working against all odds to set up and run routine immunization services aiming to protect some of the hardest-to-reach children in Gaza from entirely preventable diseases such as polio, measles and rubella. This work is carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Health, with support from IFRC, and with financial support from Gavi, which is providing vaccines procured through UNICEF and contributing to operational costs.
Here’s what two Palestine Red Crescent doctors involved in the project have to say.
My name is Dr Bashar Murad, Director of the Primary Health Care Department. I’m originally from northern Gaza, but I’m now living with my family in Khan Younis. We’ve been displaced eight times since the start of the conflict.
I’ve worked for the Palestine Red Crescent since 2000, and I’m currently running our immunization programme in partnership with the Ministry of Health, Gavi and UNICEF.
Since the start of the conflict, around 80% of health clinics in Gaza have been forced to close—either due to evacuation orders or because they’ve been damaged. Our mission is to continue childhood immunization and keep protecting children from preventable diseases, even as our health system collapses around us.
Currently, Palestine Red Crescent is offering childhood vaccination through five of our 15 medical clinics which are still managing to operate even under incredibly difficult circumstances.
Families here face immense challenges accessing health services. Clinics are closing. People are displaced. There’s the constant threat of bombs, sometimes we are forced to evacuate at short notice, and regular power outages severely hinder our work. There’s a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies, especially for chronic diseases. And with fuel supplies scarce, it can be difficult to transport the limited medical supplies we do have to where they are needed.
Recently, famine was officially declared in Gaza—something we had already seen firsthand for some time, with more and more people coming to us severely malnourished. Young children, new and expectant mothers and the elderly are the hardest hit. What is especially cruel is that when children are malnourished, it makes the vaccines less effective.
Despite the massive destruction, we must go on. Our staff and volunteers are putting themselves on the line every day to provide health services. We really feel our communities’ appreciation. We are still able to run some of our health facilities, but for how long?
We’ve already lost so much: lives, hospitals, schools. We constantly fear for people’s safety. My message is simply this: end the conflict.
Dr Bashar Murad, Palestine Red Crescent Society
My name is Dr Rami Abu Hamad and I’m from northern Gaza.
I began working for the Palestine Red Crescent in 2016. I was working at Al-Quds Hospital until the early weeks of the conflict, then moved to the field hospital in Rafah until the city was evacuated. Since July 2024, I’ve been working at the Dr. Fathi Arafat Medical Centre in Deir al-Balah
My family and I have been forced to flee three times during the conflict. We now live together in a small apartment here in Deir al-Balah. My three children (16, 14, 12) used to be star pupils, but their education has ground to a halt these past two years, which brings me so much pain.
We vaccinate around 60-70 children every day at our centre, and we also have outreach teams which head out into camps to reach families who can’t come to us. Access here is incredibly challenging due to the security situation: it’s so difficult to travel anywhere. Many of the children we are trying to help can’t get vaccines because their parents are either injured or killed.
The health and living conditions of children in Gaza is extremely poor. A combination of malnutrition, a lack of safe drinking water and poor hygiene has led to outbreaks of skin, digestive and respiratory diseases. Parents here really want to get their children vaccinated, but there are so many competing priorities. Right now, food is the most important thing amid famine and food shortages.
I keep going out of pure humanitarian commitment to my community. Despite the extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, I keep serving our people.
Dr Rami Abu Hamad, Palestine Red Crescent Society
In the midst of conflict, displacement and uncertainty, 60 Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteers are walking from one displacement shelter to another, speaking with families about the importance of childhood vaccination. With empathy and determination, they guide parents on where and how to get their children vaccinated through nearby PRCS health facilities and medical points. Along the way, they identify ‘zero-dose’ children (kids who haven’t received a single vaccine dose), helping ensure that even in the hardest-hit areas, no child is left behind.
Gaza used to have extremely high vaccination coverage, but the conflict risks leaving this in tatters. Palestine Red Crescent medical teams are working tirelessly alongside partners to maintain vaccination coverage as best they can and protect children from entirely preventable diseases. As of August 2025, they've vaccinated 20,468 children in Gaza with at least one vaccine dose.
To protect these children’s lives, medical staff, like Dr Bashar and Dr Rami, and volunteers are risking their own. Just a few months ago, Palestine Red Crescent nurse, Haitham Abu Issa, who was immunizing children at their Deir al-Balah clinic was tragically killed while off duty. Haitham is one of 51 Palestine Red Crescent staff and volunteers whose lives have been cruelly claimed since the start of the conflict.
Every child deserves the chance to grow up healthy and safe. And every humanitarian should be protected and able to carry out their life-saving work without fear. But in Gaza, these basic rights are under siege.
For parents and medical staff alike, vaccinating children used to be a part of normal life. Now, it has become an act of courage.
We welcome the ceasefire agreed and hope it leads to lasting peace. And we commend the efforts of the Palestine Red Crescent Society to make sure that no child in Gaza is left vulnerable to diseases—because for every child vaccinated, there is hope for life beyond the conflict.