UN official posts video passing through ‘broken buildings’ in Gaza City
The UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, has published a video as he drives through Gaza City, which has been devastated by more than two years of Israeli bombardment and razing operations.
Almost 90 percent of homes in Gaza have either been damaged or destroyed. In the video, Fletcher says: “For the last 25 or 32 minutes, we’ve driven through twisted concrete, broken buildings, rubble, dust. Today is the first day we can get up this road because we’ve cleared extra sections of it of the bodies and the broken buildings and broken lives that are scattered around us.”
“What is it that people need at this point that will cut through? It’s too late. We should’ve stopped this.”
Gaza’s streets overwhelmed by piles of toxic waste, increasing health risks
Beneath the rubble in Gaza is a hidden crisis. Public services were suspended during the war, and waste piled up. Municipal officials say piles of filthy rubbish need to be cleared from Gaza’s streets.
The mounds of rubbish are posing a severe health risk.
Disease spreads as rotting rubbish piles threaten returning Gaza residents
More than two years of war have left central Gaza buried under mountains of waste. From the sky, the scale of the disaster is staggering – piles of rubbish covering what were once bustling neighbourhoods.
The consequences are extremely severe from a public health perspective. There are gases emitting from these heaps of rubbish. It’s causing contamination of the air, soil, and groundwater.
People who have drunk the contaminated water are experiencing water-borne diseases. These stagnant piles of rubbish have become breeding grounds for rodents, mosquitoes, and flies, also spreading infectious disease.
Apart from Israel’s destruction of heavy equipment needed to clean up the rubbish, the deliberate blockade of the entry of fuel means the few bulldozers left here remain inoperable.
People fear that the ongoing blockage by Israel of heavy machinery to clear the waste will worsen the health situation and make this area uninhabitable.
