Polio. Chickenpox. Hepatitis. The threat of epidemics is looming large in Gaza, thanks to Israel’s deliberate destruction of the Strip’s healthcare and sanitation infrastructure. Left without clean water, sewage, waste disposal, and adequate shelter, the health of Palestinians in Gaza is rapidly declining. Children and the elderly are among the most vulnerable, and time is running out. The Real News reports from the ground in Gaza, speaking directly with sanitation experts and local mothers about the conditions Israel has created through its total war on the Palestinian people.
Producer: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt
Videographer: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi
Video Editor: Leo Erhardt
Transcript
Najwa Saleh:
This is my granddaughter. She is one and a half years old. She was displaced
when she was six months old. It’s a shame this is happening to her. Look at her back. Look!
She’s suffering from chickenpox and rashes.
Look, Look! This is shameful to happen to a child. She’s sleeping in a tent. She’s suffering
from the heat, the contaminated water.
Narrator:
Soaring temperatures, a decimated water and sewage system, extremely limited access to
water and cycles of displacement have all combined to create a public health catastrophe in
Gaza. Najwa Saleh and her family were displaced multiple times before setting up most
recently in Deir Al Balah. Here, as well as bombs, they face a more subtle creeping danger.
Najwa Saleh:
Displacement has been honestly very difficult,
very very difficult. We’re tired, our psychological state is bad. I have eight people in a small
tent. The sun has destroyed us, the heat is killing us. I mean, we’re being moved from place
to place and we’re tired. It’s really hard. Water is a problem, we buy
a gallon of water for 4 shekels (1.2 USD). We get water here at the college and it’s salty! It’s
sea water, and sea water burns the body. I have children and grandchildren, their skin is
completely covered in spots. We took them to the doctor and they don’t get better. I swear to god my granddaughter, we put something on her body but it’s not going away. Her body is scary. If you saw her body, it’s scary. I mean, we’re really really tired. We beg God to finish with this story. We’re very tired. Our lives have become hell. All the other countries are watching, while we’re being tortured.
Narrator:
It’s here in Deir El Balah, where Najwa is currently living, where samples taken from the
sewage water in July revealed the presence of the Polio virus. A highly infectious disease,
brought on by poor sanitation. Polio can cause myriad health problems for infected people,
and can lead to paralysis and in some cases even death. Rawiya Sultan Ayyad, is another
refugee recently displaced to Deir Al Balah.
Rawiya Sultan Said Ayyad:
The itching, we all got scabies here. Adults and children we all have scabies. From when we
came to Deir (al Balah). More than the other places, we were in Khan Yunis, then Rafah and
then we came here and here it was the worst. All my children have skin infections. All of
them, from my 5 year old and up, theyre all children. We also have someone with kidney
problems with us here and the contaminated water affects him. With regards to
contaminated water, it’s something difficult for us. We have all contracted Dermatitis. There’s also Hepatitis here from lack of sanitation and lack of cleaning products available. We’re going through a very hard situation. Harder than hard. There’s no work. My husband is imprisoned. My children don’t work. It’s an extremely difficult time. Treatment is difficult. Just the anti-histamines, but actually even that is not available. For around 3 months now there’snnothing available in any clinic or pharmacy or government dispensary.
Narrator:
Noor Al Huda is an Environmental specialist working for local authorities in Gaza. She
describes the current situation.
Noor Al Huda Abu Muaylik:
Here displaced people are relying on salty sea water and on drinking water that is literally
mixed with sewage water. As you can see here there are lakes of sewage, that authorities
can’t clean due to lack of fuel and lack of electricity and due to the security situation which
makes it hard to be taken care of.
Where we are currently the area of Al Bassa, which is low lying and therefore encourages
sewage to collect here this area is not connected to the sewage system in Gaza, even
before the war, it relied on septic pits. Since the war, everyone here without exception relies
on septic pits inside the tents. There are cess pits that are present within the camps where
people sleep, eat and drink due to a lack of sewage systems and lack of homes that people
lost in light of this war.
Narrator:
For Najwa and her family, the situation in Deir Al Balah has become unbearable.
Najwa Saleh:
We ran away because of our children, now we are living with contaminated water
and the hardships of living in tents. Our lives have become unbearable.
My grandson, Look at his back. Look. Look, look. Here, look.
There’s no soaps, no cleaning products at all. We’re washing with dish soap. We’re cleaning
with dish soap. Were wiping with dish soap. Washing our hands.
All these microbes and bacteria are not good. It’s all just salt and it doesn’t clean,
don’t tell me it’s good and it works. Their bodies are covered in spots. Us adults, we also
contracted it. From the contaminated water and the sewage. We adults contracted it.
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