The Gaza City Municipality urged the international community to exert all efforts to help meet the basic needs of displaced Palestinians in the city “to avoid further deterioration in public health.”
The Gaza City Municipality warned on Monday of an outbreak of epidemics and diseases among displaced Palestinians in the besieged enclave due to overcrowding of shelters, Anadolu news agency reported.
In a statement, the municipality said that the mass displacement of Palestinians from the north of the Strip to Gaza City “has added more pressure on water, sanitation and waste collection services.”
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“This has exacerbated the health and environmental crisis that the city is witnessing,” the statement added, according to Anadolu.
According to the municipality, “the forced displacement has caused unprecedented levels of waste accumulation and a significant increase in demand for water, making the situation extremely difficult.”
The Gaza City Municipality urged the international community to exert all efforts to help meet the basic needs of displaced Palestinians in the city “to avoid further deterioration in public health.”
Israel Impeding Aid
Several United Nations agencies and humanitarian aid organizations have repeatedly urged the Israeli occupation authorities since the onset of its genocidal war on Gaza to allow free access of aid into the Strip, but the majority of these calls have been rejected.
Only a few days ago, the United Nations Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, said that Israel only allowed one-third of 129 scheduled humanitarian aid missions into Gaza over the past week.
Quoting the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Dujarric added on November 23 that “the rest were either denied, impeded or canceled due to security or logistical reasons.”
The UN spokesperson noted that aid operations across the besieged Strip are facing “major access restrictions” especially in Rafah and northern Gaza governorates due to the ongoing Israeli aggression.”
“This is severely limiting the critical delivery of food, medical supplies and fuel supplies — including those needed to power water wells — and deepening an already dire humanitarian situation,” Dujarric stressed.
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Moreover, the UN official emphasized that Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza “are fighting for survival after weeks under Israeli siege” with no rescue operations for more than 40 days.
On a related topic, Dujarric pointed out the desperate need for “adequate shelter” to protect Palestinians from the harsh weather conditions with winter approaching, adding that the UN’s partners are “distributing tents and tarpaulins as quickly as possible, but it is just a fraction of what is actually needed in the area.”
“Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians living in makeshift sites and damaged buildings urgently require shelter assistance, with the ongoing siege in North Gaza driving needs even higher,” he added.
Death Toll on the Rise
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
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, 44,211 Palestinians have been killed, and 104,567 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
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’.
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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.
(PC, Anadolu)
