Gaza’s tent life between illness and daily despair
A rubbish dump near the makeshift tents of displaced Palestinians in Gaza City
The Abu Amr family have been displaced more than 17 times since Israel’s war on Gaza began. Each move has narrowed their options. Now, they are living in a tent pitched beside a sprawling rubbish dump in the Remal area of central Gaza City – one of the few remaining places where they could find space.
For the family, survival has become a daily struggle against pollution, illness and indignity.
“We always say that we live in two wars in Gaza, one that kills with bombing, and one that is from rubbish,” said Saada Abu Amr, 64, who was displaced from Beit Lahiya and is now living in Gaza City. “I have an asthma attack, and the inhaler is always with me. I put it under the pillow at night. I use it several times at night as the smell of the waste blocks my breathing airway.”
Her daughter-in-law, Suryya Abu Amr, a 35-year-old mother of five, said basic hygiene has become nearly impossible.
“We use cleaning materials, but we can’t keep spending all we have on cleaning; things never become clean in a tent near a waste area, especially with the lack of water,” she told Al Jazeera. “We get infected with gastroenteritis several times a month.”
“I was almost dying once with gastroenteritis; they told me at the hospital it was because of poor sanitation,” she added, describing how she had been forced to use toilets shared between dozens of people.
It wasn’t always this way. Before the war, Suryya said, cleanliness was central to her daily life. “I used to clean my house several times a day. Before the war, I was someone who was obsessed with cleaning. I never imagined that I would live this nightmare.”
Health crisis
Health professionals warn that the accumulation of waste, sewage and the lack of clean water are driving a surge in disease.
“The public health situation in Gaza is disastrous; we see viral and bacterial infections with severe complications that we haven’t seen or dealt with before the war,” said Dr Ahmed Alrabiei, consultant internist and pulmonologist and head of the pulmonology department at al-Shifa Medical Complex.
“There is an increase in Guillain-Barre syndrome, cases of meningitis, severe gastroenteritis, weakened immune systems, respiratory infections, Hepatitis A and asthma. There were suspected cases of cholera, but thankfully, no cases were recorded,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The groups most affected by these conditions are young children under two years, the elderly, and those with chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, those with autoimmune diseases such as lupus, kidney disease, and cancer patients,” he said.
Hospitals, he added, are operating far beyond capacity. “The pressure on hospitals is too much; the beds’ capacity here is 150 percent overwhelmed. In the chest department, we have 20 beds with more than 40 cases. Patients are in the rooms and corridors, which will also increase the chances of spreading the infections among people.”
“There is a lack of medications, antibiotics and medical equipment needed for diagnosis, which leads to late treatment for many cases,” Alrabiei said.
Gaza City is facing what municipal officials describe as one of its gravest humanitarian and environmental crises, following the near-total collapse of water and sanitation infrastructure caused by Israeli attacks.
Wastewater flooded the public toilets in a school used as a shelter in Gaza City
“More than 150,000 metres of pipes and approximately 85 percent of the water wells inside Gaza City were destroyed, in addition to the complete destruction of the water desalination plant,” said Ahmed Driemly, head of public relations at Gaza Municipality.
Solid waste has also piled up across the city after Israeli forces blocked access to Gaza’s main landfill in the east.
“More than 700,000 tonnes of solid waste are piling up in the Gaza Strip, including more than 350,000 tonnes inside Gaza City alone,” said Husni Muhanna, spokesperson for Gaza Municipality.
“This has forced the municipality to establish a temporary landfill on the land of the historic Firas Market, turning the area into a health and environmental disaster, with the spread of insects and rodents and the leakage of wastewater into the groundwater tank, especially with the rainfall,” he added.
Municipal officials say they are operating under extreme constraints. “The Gaza municipality faces a complex set of obstacles that prevent it from fully resuming its services,” Muhanna said, citing the destruction of machinery, fuel shortages, restrictions on heavy equipment, security risks and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
“The Gaza Municipality operates according to a limited emergency plan that falls short of a comprehensive plan,” he said. “Interventions are limited to opening storm drains using primitive means; the Gaza Municipality is no longer able to carry out periodic maintenance of water and sewage networks, rehabilitate roads, or manage waste in accordance with health standards.”
