Overflowing waste threatens health crisis in Gaza as hepatitis spreads

Magdy al-Zaanen is often woken up at night by the cries of his two children.

Sleeping in a makeshift tent on the pavement of Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, they regularly get bitten by mosquitoes, leaving them in great pain. 

“My wife and I pretend to put medicine on the bites to trick them to go back to sleep,” says al-Zaanen. 

Mosquito bites are just one symptom of the growing environmental and health crisis that he and nearly two million internally displaced Palestinians in Gaza are facing since Israel began its war on the Strip in October.  

Nearly eight months of relentless Israeli bombardment and siege has all but destroyed infrastructure, waste management facilities, and the Palestinian civil defence. 

This has left human remains buried under mountains of debris for months, heaps of uncollected solid waste piling up on streets and sewage overflows are a regular occurrence. 

Read more: Overflowing waste threatens health crisis in Gaza as hepatitis spread