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Living with disease

Palestinians across Gaza are facing heightened health and environmental risks owing to limited access to clean water, sewage overflow, infrastructural damage and a lack of hygiene items, according to the UN. Avoidable skin diseases are spreading among the displaced as a result of the lack of hygiene kits, water and the close proximity of living.

Throughout the Gaza Strip, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of solid waste are piling up in streets, between tents in displacement camps, and next to the rubble in back alleys. The collapse of solid waste management since the war began is worsening the public health crisis.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), doctors are wrestling with cases of lice, scabies and skin rashes.

On 16 August a 10-month-old baby became the first Palestinian to be diagnosed with polio after the disease was detected in Gaza’s water. A polio vaccine drive has since been deployed, with a second round of vaccinations due to be carried out in October.

A report by the Pacific Institute, a California-based non-partisan think tank, revealed in August that despite its small size and accounting for only 0.12 per cent of the global population, Israeli attacks on Palestinian water supplies accounted for a staggering quarter of all water-related violence globally in 2023.

Concept, research and text: Sara Khalil

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Development: MEMO's Digital Team