OXFAM has reported an outbreak of waterborne and infectious diseases in the Gaza Strip amid the lack of safe water and untreated sewage overflowing in the streets following the Israeli military’s genocidal war on the besieged coastal territory.
Also, the World Health Organisation reports that 88 per cent of environmental samples surveyed across Gaza are contaminated with polio, ‘signalling an imminent risk of outbreak’.
Oxfam said infectious diseases, including acute watery diarrhoea and respiratory infections, now the primary causes of death, are also soaring, with 46,000 cases, mostly children, being reported each week.
Chickenpox and skin diseases such as scabies and impetigo are spreading quickly, particularly among displaced people in northern Gaza, where the population faces severe water shortages.
‘Rebuilding water and sanitation is vital for Gaza to have a path to normalcy after 15 months of horror. The ceasefire must hold and fuel and aid must flow so that Palestinians can rebuild their lives,’ Clémence Lagouardat, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Coordinator in Gaza, said yesterday.
The Ministry of Health said Gaza hospitals are facing ‘a severe lack of oxygen’ that threatens patients’ lives as a result of Israel’s atrocious military campaign and the ongoing blockade of aid.
The ministry noted that Israeli forces had destroyed 10 central oxygen generating stations during the war.
According to the report, the attacks have impacted major medical facilities, including ‘al-Shifa Medical Complex, al-Rantisi Hospital, al-Durra Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital, al-Nasr Medical Complex, and the Sheikh Radwan Clinic.’
The 10 destroyed stations were essential for supplying oxygen to ‘critical hospital units such as operating rooms, intensive care units, emergency wards, and neonatal incubators, as well as patients receiving home care.’
UNRWA centres attacked after Netanyahu call
After Netanyahu’s call to implement a Knesset ban on the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees yesterday, Israeli forces attacked several educational centres affiliated with it in the occupied West Bank.
In the Qalandiya refugee camp, Israeli forces and Jerusalem municipality personnel forcefully entered the Qalandiya Training Centre and ordered its immediate evacuation of 350 students and 30 staff.
Tear gas and sound bombs were used against the civilians.
In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers and authorities stormed the UNRWA Jerusalem Elementary Boys School in the Wadi al-Joz neighbourhood yesterday morning, expelled students from their desks, and forced the staff to close the school.
Another force from the Israeli intelligence service stormed an UNRWA school in the East Jerusalem town of Silwan and interrogated the principal before withdrawing from the scene.
Another school was targeted in East Jerusalem’s Sur Baher neighbourhood.
UNRWA confirmed that the schoolday continued as usual in Sur Baher and Silwan schools, while Wadi al-Joz school was evacuated to ensure students’ safety.
