Children trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s tent camps for displaced families.
WorldPalestinians sort through trash at a landfill in Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Thursday, June 20, 2024. Israel's war in Gaza has decimated the strip's sanitation system while simultaneously displacing the vast majority of the population, leaving many Palestinians living in tent camps nearby water contaminated with sewage and growing piles of garbage.
Over a million Palestinians had been living in hastily assembled tent camps in Rafah before Israel invaded in May. Since fleeing Rafah, many have taken shelter in even more crowded and unsanitary areas across southern and central Gaza that doctors describe as breeding grounds for disease — especially as temperatures regularly reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit .
A U.N. assessment of two Deir al-Balah tent camps found in early June that people's daily water consumption — including drinking, washing and cooking — averaged under 2 liters , far lower than the recommended 15 liters a day. The World Health Organization declared an outbreak of Hepatitis A that, as of early June, had led to 81,700 reported cases of jaundice — a common symptom. The disease spreads primarily when uninfected people consume water or food contaminated with fecal matter.
“There is no one to provide us with a tent, food, or drink, and on top of all of this, we live in garbage?” Afana said. Trash attracts bugs he's never seen before in Gaza — small insects that stick to his skin. When he lies down, he said, he feels like they’re “eating his face.”
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