War on Gaza: Overflowing waste threatens health crisis as hepatitis spreads
Piles of garbage in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on 6 May 2024
Abdallah al-Naami reports in Middle East Eye on 30 May 2024:
Magdy al-Zaanen is often woken up at night by the cries of his two children. Sleeping in a makeshift tent on the pavement of Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, they regularly get bitten by mosquitoes, leaving them in great pain. “My wife and I pretend to put medicine on the bites to trick them to go back to sleep,” says al-Zaanen.
Mosquito bites are just one symptom of the growing environmental and health crisis that he and nearly two million internally displaced Palestinians in Gaza are facing since Israel began its war on the strip in October.
Nearly eight months of relentless Israeli bombardment and siege has all but destroyed infrastructure, waste management facilities, and the Palestinian civil defence. This has left human remains buried under mountains of debris for months, heaps of uncollected solid waste piling up on streets and sewage overflows are a regular occurrence.
Al-Zaanen fled his home in the northern Gaza Strip under heavy Israeli strikes shortly after the war started on 7 October. He spent two months at a school-turned-shelter in Deir al-Balah, before it became overcrowded and rife with disease. He then set up a tent for his family on the pavement of Deir al-Balah’s main road, but that wasn’t much better.
“We moved to the tent looking for a cleaner environment, but we realised that was impossible when the sewage water overflowed right next to our tent,” the father of two told Middle East Eye. “We walk through sewage puddles daily and the awful smells fill the place. We are exposed to all kinds of pollution all the time.” Desperately trying to dispel the insects who are drawn by the pollution around him, once again he lights up a small fire in the tent, hoping the smoke will drive them away. His attempts are rarely effective. “Our tent is made from plastic. It can’t protect us from Israeli bombs, mosquitos or bad smells.”
Waste and sewage
The Palestinian civil defence and local municipalities in Gaza struggled with clearing rubble and waste management even before the war. Under an Israel-led blockade since 2007, the coastal enclave has had shortages in essential equipment and resources for years. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the strip produced a “staggering” 1,700 tonnes of waste daily and had only two main landfills, one of which was operating beyond capacity.
Since the war started, Israeli bombing has caused major damage to infrastructure, including the targeting of waste collection vehicles, facilities and medical waste treatment centres, according to the UNDP. Satellite analysis by the Financial Times shows there are now more than 140 solid waste dump sites across the Gaza Strip.
The crisis has been aggravated due to the permanent presence of Israeli forces in the Juhor ad-Dik area, where Gaza’s main landfill is located, making it inaccessible.
Wells and sewage networks have also been bombed during the ongoing assault, causing the loss of more than 60 percent of the water supply, according to Mohammad Mosleh, the mayor of Magazi refugee camp.