Sanitary disaster in Gaza ‘worsening by the day’, warns UNRWA

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Overcrowded shelters in Gaza, a lack of running water and the constant threat of disease are making conditions worse by the day for people in the enclave, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, warned on Monday.

In a new alert, UNRWA highlighted how Gazans’ shelters have become a target for insects and rodents after more than 11 months of war – echoing deep concerns among humanitarians about the lack of basic hygiene items that have left families unprotected from communicable diseases.

Echoing those warnings, top independent rights experts meeting at UN Geneva maintained that access to clean water for Gaza’s 2.3 million people has been weaponized by Israel.

Source of pain

“Water is the main food we need…it is irreplaceable. But at the same time, if drinkability is not guaranteed, it becomes the most terrible vector of disease and death that exists in the world,” said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. “So, in this case, this is clearly employed as a weapon in Gaza against [the] Palestinian civil population.” 

Mr. Arrojo-Agudo, who reports to the Human Rights Council in his capacity as an independent rights expert, said that the population of Gaza now lives on an average of 4.7 litres of water, per person per day – well below the 15-litre minimum recommendation during emergencies from the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

With a coastal aquifer the only natural source of fresh water for Gazans, “this huge population has been forced to pump three times more water than the aquifer receives through natural replenishment”, resulting in sea water pollution during the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the Special Rapporteur maintained.

“In addition, Israel has been blocking 70 per cent of the materials needed to build and operate sewage treatment plants as ‘dual use’ materials, preventing proper sewage treatment, which has led to progressive faecal contamination of ground water,” Mr. Arrojo-Agudo insisted.

Priced out

In an update, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said that a 75 gramme bar of soap costs $10 in Gaza, while shampoo, detergent and washing-up liquid are no longer available in markets.

This lack of hygiene items “disproportionately affects children, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems”, said the WHO, which underscored that simple handwashing with soap is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of diseases linked to poor sanitary conditions, such as diarrhoea, respiratory infections, scabies and other skin infections.

© UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

“It can protect approximately one in three children who suffer from diarrhoea and prevent the spread of germs to food, drinks, and surfaces,” the UN health agency insisted, in support of appeals to allow a minimum of five trucks per day into Gaza from commercial vendors containing soap and basic hygiene supplies, both in the south and north.

Civil society space obliterated

Meanwhile, top independent human rights experts also said on Monday that there is “literally no place left” for civil society activists to work safely, after air strikes and ground attacks by the Israeli military.

In recent months, the oldest human rights organization in Gaza, the Palestinian Human Rights Centre, has seen staff members killed and its offices damaged beyond repair during operations by the Israeli Defense Forces, said Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor and other experts who report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in an independent capacity.

Ms. Lawlor noted that two women lawyers from the Palestinian NGO were killed in February 2024 – Nour Abu al-Nour, who died with her two-year-old daughter, her parents and four siblings in an air raid on her house in Rafah – and Dana Yaghi, killed alongside 37 family members in an air raid on a house in Deir el-Balah.

In a statement, Ms. Lawlor said that it was “a terrible tragedy that justice for these two women human rights defenders, their family members and their children, seems so far away” while human rights defenders who worked to keep hope alive for justice…are becoming victims themselves”.