A lack of clean water and sanitation facilities has caused an uptick in infections among Palestinians in Gaza, while NGOs warn of the dire consequences.
22 May, 2024
Some Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are surviving on just three percent of the global minimum standard for daily water usage, two humanitarian groups have said, as Israel’s war has decimated the enclave’s water infrastructure.
A lack of clean water and sanitation facilities have led to an increase in diseases and infections among Gaza’s civilian population, particularly children, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
The two organisations said in a report on Tuesday that they were alarmed at the situation after recent trips to the besieged Gaza Strip, which has been under a brutal Israeli offensive since 7 October.
The report adds that field observations by experts from IRC and MAP in Gaza are struggling to find safe and clean water, and that "at least one major hospital struggling to keep sufficient water supplies to meet its needs".
The experts do not specify which hospital, however, Israel's bombardment of the Strip has fully destroyed or damaged the majority of the enclave's hospitals and medical facilities, rendering them no longer functional.
A deterioration of water, sanitation and hygiene conditions "have significantly increased acute watery diarrhoea among children under five, while other water-borne and communicable diseases such as Hepatitis are proliferating among families who cannot access sources of clean water," the report found.
Families have been forced to build their own toilets, with hundreds of people using a single one, amounting to 30 times more than the minimum global standard, IRC and MAP said.