Sewage discharge turns Gaza's coastline brown, raising concerns over disease outbreaks

Parts of Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline have begun turning brown, raising alarms among health experts about the spread of untreated sewage and potential disease outbreaks in the area.

Satellite images analysed by BBC Arabic reveal a significant sewage discharge off the coast of Deir Al-Balah. Abu Yazan Ismael Sarsour, head of the Deir Al-Balah emergency committee, said: “It is because of the increase in the number of displaced people and many are connecting their own pipes to the rainwater drainage system.”

Moreover, environmental expert from Pax for Peace, Wim Zwijnenburg, confirmed that wastewater from the overcrowded camps is flowing into the sea after reviewing the satellite imagery.

The sewage spill captured in satellite images from 2 August covered an area exceeding two square kilometres. The discharge first became visible in June and steadily expanded over the following two months. It’s unclear whether the coastal pollution has continued to spread, as more recent satellite data is unavailable.

In June, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that “67 per cent of water, sanitation facilities and infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged” in the Gaza Strip since 7 October.

The report details numerous incidents in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. In Gaza, where the water situation was already dire before Israel launched its military assault on 7 October, Israeli air strikes have caused extensive damage to critical infrastructure. One notable incident involved the partial destruction of EU-supported solar panels powering a wastewater treatment plant serving one million people.

The Israeli military unit tasked with overseeing civilian policy in the occupied Palestinian territories (COGAT) claims a specialised humanitarian task force has been working to improve Gaza’s sewage system. However, these claims cannot be independently verified as Israel restricts access to Gaza, with independent journalists only allowed entry while embedded with the Israeli military.

However, health experts are raising concerns about the risk of waterborne diseases in Gaza, especially after a ten -month-old baby was paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

UN agencies have called for Israel to agree to a seven-day humanitarian pause to its bombing of Gaza to allow vaccination campaigns to proceed in the enclave.

Oxfam reported that a quarter of Gaza’s population has already fallen ill due to waterborne diseases.

Lama Abdul Samad, a water and sanitation expert at Oxfam, told the BBC: “We are seeing a catastrophic health crisis unfolding in front of our eyes. Polio is a waterborne disease and it is directly linked to the sanitation situation.”

“The sanitation infrastructure has been damaged severely to the point that it is flooding the streets and the neighbourhoods, and people are basically living adjacent to puddles of sewage,” she added.

This latest record of water-related violence adds to the mounting evidence of systematic violations of Palestinian rights under Israeli occupation, which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said is illegal in a landmark ruling last month.

READ: EU Foreign Policy chief warns of swift spread of polio in Gaza