PALESTINE
Wed 12 Jun 2024 8:19 am - Jerusalem Time
Gaza: The ghost of "cholera" wanders among the tents of the displaced!
Tens of thousands of displaced people in Al-Mawasi live among piles of waste
- One toilet for every 4,150 displaced people, which exacerbates the suffering of the displaced and increases the risk of the spread of diseases and epidemics.
The harsh conditions left by the war are unimaginable, the lack of drinking water and bathing every two weeks with unclean water
United Nations Development Program: 270 thousand tons of waste accumulated among residential areas
A striking report published by Oxfam International, an organization working in the field of relief, warned that the Israeli occupation forces’ destruction of vital water and sanitation infrastructure, in addition to severe overcrowding, malnutrition and heat, “push the Gaza Strip to the brink of a deadly epidemic outbreak.” A reference to the "cholera" epidemic!
The repeated warnings from Oxfam and other international organizations, which continue to operate with difficulty due to the bloody war that the occupation forces have continued throughout the Gaza Strip since October last year, along with repeated warnings from the authorities responsible for the health sector in more than one location in the Strip, indicate that Tens of thousands of displaced people are crowded together in the Al-Mawasi area near the sea. They live among/close to piles of waste, and torrents of sewage walk with them on the streets. Children also suffer from insect bites, which constitutes, as identical data says, “an ideal environment for the spread of epidemics.” "various", and of course "cholera" among them.
The "horrific" sanitary conditions in the Al-Mawasi area, where more than one and a half million displaced people are located, as Oxfam says in its latest press releases, include a staggering shortage of latrines, as every 4,130 displaced people have only one latrine, which has forced many of them to... Citizens who spoke to Al-Quds.com, separately, yesterday, said they had built shabby cloth toilets adjacent to the tents, in desperate attempts to obtain a measure of “coverage” and to mitigate the dangers of the unhealthy environment in which the war forces them to live.
Citizen “M.A.” (who preferred not to be referred to by name) said: The construction of a toilet for “relieving oneself” next to a tent in the shifting displacement areas south of Wadi Gaza; To maintain a level of cleanliness that protects against the evil of potential epidemics, “it has become one of our not-so-small concerns since we became displaced.” However, the practice of young men impoverished by the war installing cloth toilets over small pits next to the displacement tents (for a small wage) made the issue, for some families, less complicated, adding in his interview with “Al-Quds”.com, that the scale of the environmental disaster that the war produced, In addition to targeting the equipment of local bodies designated for transporting waste with destruction... Also, the accumulation of tens of thousands of displaced people, including near/next to piles of waste, all of which makes the harbinger of disaster (meaning the spread of the “cholera” epidemic) closer to being realized.
In a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund - UNICEF, published two days ago, the organization said that the harsh conditions created by the Israeli war in Gaza and the entire Strip are “unimaginable,” quoting a displaced mother named (Wissam) that her family, which includes... Four children do not have clean drinking water, while family members bathe (with unclean water) once every two weeks. This is a similar situation experienced by the family of mother Hanan Al-Jarjawi (35 years old), whose five children were recovered from the rubble of a house in Gaza City that was destroyed by the Israeli bombing, according to what she points out. The mother, Najwa Ibrahim Al-Dabbaji, in the same context, indicated that all of her children (4 in number) were infected with hepatitis due to lack of hygiene... and that her children cried all night due to the intense heat inside the displacement tent, and - as UNICEF reported from the mother - Al-Dabbaji” - they urinate “involuntarily” because of fear.
While sources in the United Nations Development Program estimated that 270 thousand tons of waste accumulated in piles and are distributed in various places and close to residential areas, in addition to more than another hundred thousand tons of waste distributed in random piles in Gaza City... Munther points out Shablaq, CEO of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility in the Gaza Strip, noted that all water supply and sanitation systems are on the verge of complete collapse; Because the damage caused by war is widespread. There is no electricity to operate water wells, desalination plants, and the remaining wastewater treatment plants that overflow in the streets and between the tents of the displaced.
UNICEF says that it distributed, during the two weeks (until June 10 of this year), five thousand packages containing hygiene tools, while Oxfam says that its efforts to mitigate the harsh environmental conditions resulting from the Israeli “War of the Iron Swords,” and despite all Under the circumstances, I was able, in cooperation with local organizations, to carry out quick repairs to some water and sewage pipes that were damaged by the Israeli bombing in the Rafah, Khan Yunis, and Deir al-Balah governorates, while workers at the “Palestinian Agricultural Relief” spoke with “Al-Quds”.com, about the efforts made by the organization. In the face of the environmental catastrophe resulting from the war, including providing safe drinking water for tens of thousands of displaced people; But all of this and more does not alleviate the anxiety of hundreds of thousands of displaced people about the possible spread of cholera. The epidemic becomes one of the additional tools in the ongoing war of extermination.
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Gaza: The ghost of "cholera" wanders among the tents of the displaced!