Intense heat in Gaza could worsen health crisis for Palestinians, WHO warns

Palestinians shop at a market built among buildings, some of which are destroyed and the majority of which are heavily damaged and unusable as Palestinians are trying to survive at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza City, Gaza on June 20, 2024. [Mahmoud İssa – Anadolu Agency]

The World Health Organisation warned on Friday that scorching heat in the Gaza Strip could exacerbate health problems for Palestinians displaced by Israeli bombardment and heavy fighting between its forces and Hamas, Reuters reports.

The World Food Programme has warned that a massive public health crisis is looming in Gaza due to the lack of clean water, food and medical supplies.

“We’ve seen massive displacement over the last weeks and months, and we know that combination and the heat can cause a rise in diseases,” said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative for Gaza and the West Bank.

“We have water contamination because of hot water, and we will have much more food spoilage because of the high temperature. We will get insects – mosquitoes and flies, dehydration, heat stroke.”

Extreme heat has killed hundreds worldwide, as the northern hemisphere summer begins.

READ: UK Labour Party leader refuses to accept genocide is happening in Gaza

Peeperkorn said in Gaza, due to poor water and sanitation conditions, the number of cases of diarrhoea were 25 times higher than usual.

Contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery and hepatitis A, according to the WHO.

The WHO has been unable to carry out medical evacuations from Gaza since the closure of the Rafah Crossing in early May.

Peeperkorn said an estimated 10,000 patients still required medical evacuation from Gaza, half of whom are suffering from ailments related to the war.

Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed more than 37,400 people in the Palestinian Territory, according to health authorities there.

Israel launched its assault after Hamas fighters stormed across the border into southern Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

WATCH: Palestinian appears ‘shell-shocked’ after alleged torture in Israeli prison

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.