Residents and aid organizations claim that Palestinian refugees who have returned to northern Gaza have found once-bustling cities transformed into toxic wastelands.
Residents of Gaza City are reportedly calling for action on Monday in response to the city’s largest city’s building sanitation crisis, according to Al Jazeera.
Those who were attempting to rebuild their lives in the northern reaches of the enclave, which had been the focus of Israeli military action during the war, have met at a scene of devastation. Losing public services and streets full of garbage are just two examples of the dangers presented by damaged buildings.
People who had fled the north were quick to return to the north after last month’s ceasefire agreement. However, Gaza City remains without running water or reliable power.
Towns are lacking basic services like water and healthcare, said Tess Ingram of the United Nations Children’s Fund , (UNICEF).
“They’ve been shocked by what they’ve returned to”, she said from Gaza City.
“They had hoped that their homes, their neighbourhoods, their communities maybe had been spared. And as they come back here and realise that’s not the case, the hope they’ve been holding onto for 15 months crashes”.
The scale of destruction shocked families who travel to the northern #Gaza.
Tess Ingram from UNICEF shares the stark realities of the real world and the difficulties people face. pic. twitter.com/IRYrN9AsNM
Central areas of the city, including the business center, are littered with tons of toxic waste, increasing disease spread.
“Accumulation of waste in the vicinity of hospitals gives rise to grave health risks, mainly the outbreak of diseases and epidemics”, said Amin al-Alia, a nurse at Ahli Hospital.
“It is extremely dangerous”, resident Ahmed Nasser told Al Jazeera. We hope to have it removed as soon as possible.
“This area has turned as scary as haunted woods”, added shop owner Majid Bassam. “It is rife with insects, stray dogs, you name it. It is a vast area of wasteland”.
Further north, the suffering is getting worse due to heavy rain and strong winds in Gaza City.
With shelter lacking, some have resorted to starting fires inside collapsed buildings for warmth, reported Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud from Gaza City.
According to Mahmoud, “there have been three documented instances of people dying recently under comparable buildings that have collapsed.”
Hanan Balkhy from the World Health Organization (WHO) described people’s suffering in the war-racked enclave as “beyond comprehension” and called for accelerated aid operations.
The WHO “is ready to scale up our response,” but she added that “we urgently need systematic and sustained access to the population across Gaza, and we need an end to the restrictions on the entry of essential supplies.”
Since Israel’s military partially reopened the Netzarim Corridor, which divides Gaza from north to south, for travel in late January, more than 50 000 Palestinians have retreated to northern Gaza.
Source: Aljazeera
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