A 10-Month-Old Palestinian Baby Suddenly Stopped Crawling. Polio Had Struck Gaza

Born into the devastating Israel-Hamas war, 10-month-old Abdel-Rahman Abu El-Jedian started crawling early. Then one day, he froze — his left leg appeared to be paralyzed.

The baby boy is the first confirmed case of polio inside Gaza in 25 years, according to the World Health Organization.

Abdel-Rahman was an energetic baby, said the child’s mother, Nevine Abu El-Jedian, fighting back tears. “Suddenly, that was reversed. Suddenly, he stopped crawling, stopped moving, stopped standing up, and stopped sitting.”

Health care workers in Gaza have been warning of the potential for a polio outbreak for months, as the humanitarian crisis unleashed by Israel’s offensive on the strip only grows. Abdel-Rahman’s diagnosis confirms health workers’ worst fears.

Before the war, Gaza’s children were largely vaccinated against polio, the WHO says.

But Abdel-Rahman was not vaccinated because he was born just before Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and Israel launched a retaliatory offensive on Gaza that forced his family into near-immediate flight. Hospitals came under attack, and regular vaccinations for newborns all but stopped.

The WHO says that for every case of paralysis due to polio, there are hundreds more who likely have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms. Most people who contract the disease do not experience symptoms, and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure, and when polio causes paralysis, it is usually permanent. If the paralysis affects breathing muscles, the disease can be fatal.

The Abu El-Jedian family, like many, now live in a crowded tent camp, near heaps of garbage and dirty wastewater flowing into the streets that aid workers describe as breeding grounds for diseases like polio, spread through fecal matter. The United Nations has unveiled plans to begin a vaccination campaign to stop the spread and protect other families from the ordeal the Abu El-Jedian family now faces.