Palestinians in Gaza are forced to drink sewage water and eat animal feed, says WHO

Some Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to drink sewage water and eat animal feed, the World Health Organisation’s regional director said yesterday. Dr Hanan Balkhy called for an urgent increase in humanitarian aid to the besieged territory.

She also warned that Israel’s war on Gaza is having a broader impact on healthcare throughout the region. The consequences for children will be severe and long-lasting, the child health specialist told AFP in an interview at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.

“There are people who are now eating animal food, eating grass, they’re drinking sewage water,” explained Dr Balkhy. “Children are barely able to eat, while the trucks are standing outside of Rafah.”

The UN has long warned of an impending famine in Gaza, with 1.1 million people — about half the population — facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

Dr Balkhy, who took office in February, emphasised that Gaza needs “peace, peace, peace,” along with significantly increased aid access by land. Following a recent visit to the Rafah Crossing from Egypt into southern Gaza, an essential aid route closed by Israeli forces early last month, she urged the occupation state to “open those borders.”

The WHO official insisted that the Kerem Shalom border crossing between southern Gaza and Israel was “not enough,” and the efforts at maritime corridors and air drops made little sense when far less costly and more effective land routes already existed and “the trucks are lined up” waiting to enter the enclave.

The flow of deliveries, conducted via the Kerem Shalom border crossing between southern Gaza and Israel, has been erratic, according to Palestinian officials who said that anything between 20 and 150 trucks — each carrying up to 20 tonnes of food — have entered per day depending on how many Israel allows in.

That is well short of the 600 trucks a day that the US Agency for International Aid says is required to address the threat of famine, even when adding the roughly 4,200 trucks of food aid — about 190 a day — that Israeli officials say have entered Gaza since the beginning of the Rafah assault on 7 May.

Dr Balkhy expressed further frustration at the blocking of medical equipment deemed “dual use,” items that Israel claims could be repurposed for military activities. “We’re talking about ventilators, purification chemicals to clean water,” the Saudi doctor explained.

Moreover, she stressed the urgent needs of patients in Gaza, with around 11,000 critically ill and wounded people requiring medical evacuation.

“The patients coming out are showing extremely complex traumas: compound fractures, multi-drug resistant infections, severely injured children,” she noted. “To rehabilitate and treat people like this, you need very complex healthcare.” This, she said, highlighted the additional strain on already fragile health systems in neighbouring countries, particularly Egypt.

The WHO warned last week of an “abrupt halt” to medical evacuations since Israel launched its offensive in Rafah in early May, warning that more people would die while waiting for care.

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