Two children have reportedly died due to an unusual heatwave in the besieged Gaza Strip, while the Palestinian Health Ministry warned that unsafe drinking water is putting residents’ lives at risk.
“As temperature rises, life conditions in Gaza worsen,” the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) stated on X on Sunday.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General, said: “We received reports that at least two children died due to the heat.”
“What more to endure: death, hunger, disease, displacement, and now living in greenhouses-like structures under scorching heat,” he stressed.
Lazzarini said that over the past few days, “Gaza has been undergoing an unusual heatwave.”
This, he explained, made “the already inhumane living conditions even worse for 1.5 million people, mostly living under plastic sheets in Rafah.”
“We cannot afford on top of this misery, a major military operation to go ahead. This war must stop, a ceasefire is overdue in Gaza.”
No Water Treatment Options
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday that with the closure of the public health laboratory and the inability to test drinking water, as well as Israel’s “prohibition on the entry of chlorine” or any alternative for treating drinking water, “all citizens of the Gaza Strip are consuming unsafe water, putting their lives at risk.”
The ministry also warned of the spread of diseases resulting from the overflow of sewage water and the accumulation of waste in the streets and among the tents of the displaced.”
This is in addition to “the spread of reptiles and insects, and rising temperatures.”
The situation “signals a looming health disaster,” the ministry said.
On Wednesday, cases of meningitis and hepatitis were detected, the ministry said.
Over 34,000 Killed
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 34,454 Palestinians have been killed, and 77,575 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.