“Our colleagues shared that two people had already died in this facility because of the lack of sanitation, and there is a spread of hepatitis A and skin diseases.”
The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has highlighted “the appalling conditions” of displaced people in Gaza, with one school sheltering 14,000 Palestinians in classrooms and in makeshift shelters, with only 25 toilets at the facility.
“Our colleagues shared that two people had already died in this facility because of the lack of sanitation, and there is a spread of hepatitis A and skin diseases,” Louis Wateridge, UNRWA’s Senior Communications Officer said on Thursday.
In a video on X, Wateridge highlighted the situation at a UNRWA school in Deir el-Bala, one of more than 180 schools that the UN agency has turned into a shelter during the war.
“Walking through the school, there are people sleeping in the hallways, even an elderly couple in the stairwell,” Wateridge said.
https://twitter.com/UNRWA/status/1811337177445368030
‘Frighteningly Malnourished’
Outside one of the classrooms, there were two children suffering from a genetic disorder that requires high protein intake, “frighteningly malnourished, having been deprived the duration of the war.”
Staff at the facility told her “The shelter hasn’t had food to distribute since the 11th of March.”
“Parents showed us photos of their once healthy children, unrecognizable from the sunken eyes looking up from a filthy mattress in a hallway, skin covered in bedsores from not being able to wash,” said Wateridge.
Water Shortage
The facility only has 25 toilets, meaning 560 people “are sharing one single toilet with no hygiene products” and a shortage of water “due to a lack of fuel” to pump water from the water well, the UNRWA officer emphasized.
“The conditions here are utterly appalling,” Wateridge stressed. “People are being killed by bombs and strikes, and now they’re also dying from disease and malnourishment, and there are different consequences of the imposed siege.”
Last month, Gaza’s Government Media Office said at least 1.5 million Palestinians in the besieged enclave have contracted infectious diseases due to the displacement caused by the war.
Beyond Bombs – Infectious Diseases Plague Over 1.5 Million Displaced in Gaza
Ongoing Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 38,345 Palestinians have been killed, and 88,295 wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
I have written and published about both Gaza and the West Bank since 1979. I have no words left to express my anguish and horror at what Israel, a criminal, terrorist, pariah state, is executing.