Action Against Hunger: Garbage and heat threaten life in the Gaza Strip

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Action Against Hunger confirmed that the Gaza Strip is threatened by the spread of serious diseases this summer due to garbage waste and high temperatures, which increases the tragedy of the population who are already suffering from food shortages.

“This amount of solid waste in the Gaza Strip causes many problems in hygiene and sanitation,” said Vina Diamanti, the organization’s emergency project coordinator.

The NGO's emergency project coordinator told Reuters that garbage management is one of her main concerns because it cannot be removed from the war-torn area and residents cannot access landfills.

She continued, saying: "We fear the emergence of unknown diseases in the Gaza Strip that could affect the entire population, especially in the summer with high temperatures."

Temperatures rose to 38 degrees Celsius in a heat wave that swept Gaza last summer, causing power outages for 12 hours a day.

The non-governmental organization also helps distribute drinking water to charitable kitchens and residents, and distributes nutritional supplements to children and those in vulnerable situations in the sector.

Diamanti stated that the malnutrition rate in Gaza was only 0.8% before the war, but the situation has changed radically.

She pointed out that despite the absence of accurate data, people are already dying from malnutrition, explaining that they had to intervene to prevent and treat malnutrition, with a focus on children under five years old, pregnant women, and breastfeeding women.

More than one million people in Palestine face  the risk of severe catastrophic famine and death by mid-July , according to a joint report issued by the United Nations Food Organization and the World Food Programme.

The Israeli war on Gaza left more than 119,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women , and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.