UNRWA Warns Waste Piling Up in Gaza Endangers Residents’ Health and Lives

UNRWA said the accumulation of waste in the Gaza Strip endangers the health and lives of residents, warning in a post on the X platform that "In Gaza, waste is piling up, endangering the health and lives of the inhabitants."

The agency said many people are forced to live "amid heaps of waste" and linked the worsening waste crisis to broader public health problems for those enduring what it called "unimaginable hardships."

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UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini stated that no humanitarian aid has entered Gaza for more than three weeks, describing it as the longest period without supplies since the start of the Israeli aggression, which has lasted for 18 months.

Lazzarini urged action to "lift the siege, reopen crossings to allow a steady flow of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies" and to stop the bombardments and restore the ceasefire in Gaza.

In parallel, SANA said Israel continues to destroy water infrastructure in Gaza, stating that the Gaza Government Information Office reported Israel destroyed 720 water wells and deprived more than 1,250,000 people of access to potable water.

Al Jazeera Net described displaced families living beside garbage dumps, saying that whenever a new batch of waste is dumped, "the smell, flies, and cockroaches swarm the displacement tents."

The report said skin diseases began to spread among displaced people on a large scale, with Dr. Halima Abu Sharbin confirming that she receives at least 150 cases per day.

Al-Jazeera Net

It also said the occupation refused entry of garbage unloading trucks to the Sufa landfill located within what is known as the 'Yellow Line' (occupied areas), leaving residents with no place to live away from the waste dumps.

Al Jazeera Net quoted Saeed Al-Aklouk, head of the Water and Sanitation Control Department at the Ministry of Health, warning that the danger increases when makeshift dumps last longer, because "the length of time makeshift dumps last increased the chance of toxic leachate reaching the groundwater."

The same report said the Gaza Strip’s Federation of Municipalities estimates the volume of waste spread across all governorates at between 700,000 and 800,000 tons, while more than two million Palestinians generate about 2,000 tons of waste per day.

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported that the Gaza Strip Municipalities Union warned on Saturday that the territory is approaching a stage of total collapse in basic municipal services amid a worsening fuel crisis, a ban on importing spare parts, and the ongoing closure of crossings.

The mayor of Khan Younis and vice president of the Gaza Strip Municipalities Union, Alaa Al-Batta, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the municipalities deal daily with roughly one thousand tons per day and said the sector needs no less than 50,000 liters of fuel daily to operate rubble-collection machinery.

Al-Batta said the fuel allocated for rubble removal has not entered the sector for about 25 days, causing a crisis in debris removal as residents return to damaged homes and the amount of rubble in the streets increases.

He warned that the waste crisis is escalating dangerously, threatening the spread of diseases, insects, and rodents, while also describing water-sector damage as about 80% of water wells destroyed and a daily production drop from more than 200,000 cubic meters before the war to about 80,000 now.

The Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation said living conditions remain catastrophic due to difficulties in accessing Gaza and delivering humanitarian aid based on humanitarian principles, and it described the security situation as fragile despite a ceasefire.