Israel is facing its deadliest measles outbreak in years, with six young children dead in the past two weeks and hundreds more hospitalized, senior health officials warned lawmakers on Tuesday.

At a Knesset Health Committee hearing, Dr. Sharon Elroei-Price, head of public health services at the Health Ministry, reported that nearly 1,700 measles cases have been confirmed in the past six months. Since the outbreak began in May, 437 patients have been hospitalized, including 39 in intensive care. All of the fatalities were children under the age of two with no underlying health conditions.

The surge is being driven by a sharp increase in unvaccinated children, particularly in Charedi population centers such as Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Harish, Nof HaGalil, Modiin Illit, Kiryat Gat, Ashdod, and Tzfas. The number of unvaccinated children in these communities has doubled since Israel’s last major outbreak in 2018, Elroei-Price said.

The Health Ministry has allocated NIS 5.5 million ($1.7 million) to combat the crisis, but local officials say resources are stretched thin. “There are long lines to get vaccinated and there is an acute shortage of nurses who are working nonstop,” said Gil Ribush, deputy director of the Jerusalem Municipality.

Despite staffing shortages, vaccination rates are climbing. Yona Kaufman, health supervisor for Beit Shemesh, noted that 2.5 times more vaccines have been administered this year than during the same period in 2024, with the increases even sharper in outbreak hotspots: 3.3 times more in Jerusalem, five times more in Beit Shemesh, and three times more in Bnei Brak.

Kaufman credited community-led initiatives for the turnaround, praising “the activities of the Charedi public who are recruiting thousands of new vaccine recipients in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh.”

The Health Ministry says it is deploying mobile vaccination units to meet the surging demand, but experts warn the crisis is far from over — and that the death toll could climb if gaps in immunization persist.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)