Growing piles of waste in Gaza mean families are fleeing to areas where “acceptable living conditions” do not exist, the UN said.
“Everywhere you look there is a pile of rubbish,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) posted on its X account alongside photos of rubbish in Deir al-Balah on the Mediterranean coast.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last night that around 1 million refugees from the city of Rafah were living in poor sanitary conditions.
The war, which has been going on for almost eight months, has greatly deteriorated the living conditions of the Gaza Strip’s approximately 2.2 million residents.
According to aid organizations, around 1.7 million people have had to leave their homes.
Even before the war, there were only two central waste disposal sites in Gaza, processing approximately 1,700 tons of waste per day.
The UN has warned of serious health consequences of the waste crisis for people in the Gaza Strip. There is also a risk of contamination of agricultural soils and groundwater. Rising temperatures in the region could further worsen the situation.
The Gaza War was sparked by the unprecedented massacre of more than 1,200 people by militants from the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group and other militants in Israel on October 7. More than 36,100 Palestinians have been killed so far, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza. killed in the war.
