More than 330,000 tonnes of solid waste are piling up in and out of populated areas of the Gaza Strip, a UN relief agency has said.
Unimpeded humanitarian access and ceasefire are “crucial to restore humane living conditions,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on the social media platform X.
It added that agency teams, through mental health services, have continued to provide psychological interventions to children in shelter centres through specialised activities such as psychological relief, relaxation and stimulation sessions, and purposeful games.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a large-scale war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has claimed the lives of more than 37,000 Palestinians and led to massive destruction of homes and infrastructure.
It came after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, which claimed the lives of more than 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostages, according to the Israeli authorities.
The alarm comes a month after the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian aid following its takeover of the Rafah crossing will lead to a major drop in sanitation services — followed by the rapid spread of disease, which scholars have previously pointed out is often used as a deliberate tactic in genocide.
“There is no fuel for the sanitation workers to move any of the trash piling up.
It’s summer, disease is spreading, there is trash everywhere.
There’s no fuel to run generators for hospitals, there’s no fuel for the water supply.
The water supply is going to shut off,” UNRWA communications director Louise Wateridge had warned at the time.
Many of Wateridge’s warnings have come true. Trash has piled up in the streets, some of which have been turned into dumping grounds.
Only an estimated 20 percent of trash is being collected, while large pools of standing water are spreading pollution and allowing insects to breed rapidly.
Hospitals — which Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted — are regularly overloaded with casualties of Israel’s constant bombardment and raids.
As health care access has dwindled, public health risks have skyrocketed, worsened by the fact that large segments of Gaza’s population are seriously wounded and regularly going days without food.
Palestinian officials recently reported that there are over 1.1 million cases of infectious disease in Gaza, or at least one disease for every two people on average.