In Gaza, amid the dust and the wreckage, a nurse kneels beside a child holding out a tiny arm. A vaccine vial, once routine, now feels like a treasure.

UNICEF’s new campaign aims to reach 40,000 toddlers who missed their shots during two years of war. Before the fighting, Gaza’s vaccination coverage was almost universal. Now, it has fallen below 70%, the line that keeps outbreaks at bay.

Of 55 clinics, 31 have been destroyed or damaged.

“We used to worry about schedules,” says a health worker. “Now we worry about electricity.”

The operation, launched over the weekend, is meant to unfold in three waves, this month, December, and January if fuel and supplies hold out.

Trucks carrying 1.6 million syringes sit just beyond the border, waiting for clearance. Inside the Strip, power cuts threaten refrigeration systems and hospital generators.

The UN has delivered enough fuel, for now, to keep bakeries and water plants running. Bread is baked daily in 19 UN-supported bakeries; the loaves disappear faster than they rise. Food parcels reach only a fraction of those in need.

The guns have quieted, at least for the moment. But in Gaza’s clinics, another kind of battle continues, one fought not with weapons, but with patience, needles, and hope that the ceasefire holds long enough to save a generation.