Rabat – With Israel’s relentless, murderous bombing campaign having destroyed the bulk of Gaza’s region’s health and sanitation infrastructure, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that diseases could end up killing more people in Gaza than Israel’s punitive war.
In addition, fuel and supply shortages have rendered many of the Gaza Strip’s medical facilities non-operational. Safe drinking water and food have also been increasingly scarce resources, making for fertile ground for infectious diseases.
“Eventually we will see more people dying from disease than from bombardment if we are not able to put back together this health system,” Margaret Harris, a spokesperson for the WHO, said in Geneva on Tuesday.
Harris also talked about the collapse of al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, the strip’s largest medical facility, describing its fall as a “tragedy” and voicing concern about the treatment of medical staff by Israeli forces.
The lack of sanitation services in Gaza increases the likelihood of an increase in gastrointestinal diseases among the war-torn enclave’s populations, including potentially life-threatening diseases such as cholera.
WHO has recorded over 44,000 cases of diarrhea in the region as well as 70,000 acute respiratory infections, with the real numbers likely to be a lot higher.
War wounds have also posed a new challenge, especially among children, who have become vulnerable to various infections in the absence of adequate medical resources.
Since Israel started its genocidal campaign on the Gaza Strip on October 7, over 15,000 people have died including 6,000 children.
Although a temporary truce agreement is currently in effect, many observers have argued that it is not enough, urging the international community to move to establish a permanent ceasefire and stop the needless violence against Palestinian civilians.
