GAZA, (PIC)
“Who did not die by bombardment, died of epidemics”, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said, describing the situation in the Gaza Strip and warning of the escalating death and injury toll among children due to the spread of various diseases and epidemics resulting from sewage flooding the streets and displacement tents, along with a severe shortage of drinking water, especially in the summer hot days.
Since October 7 last year, Israel has been waging a bloody aggression on Gaza, which has resulted in tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded, in addition to thousands of missing persons.
UNICEF revealed that more than a million children have been suffering from skin and respiratory diseases since October 7, with more than 860,000 children complaining of respiratory diseases, 400,000 others of intestinal infections and more than 10,000 of skin diseases.
The UN organization warned of dire consequences of Israeli continued obstruction of aid delivery, especially fuel which is needed to extract drinking water from ground wells.
The Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza said that the forced displacement has already caused more than 1.66 million infectious diseases, including more than 71,000 cases with viral hepatitis infections.
For its part, humanitarian and human rights organizations unanimously agreed on the need to immediately stop the genocide war on Gaza to ensure the implementation of relief plans to save people, especially children, in the Strip from certain death, and to prevent the exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis in light of the lack of essential basic needs.
On June 7, UNICEF announced that 9 out of 10 children in Gaza were suffering from acute shortage of food, stressing that malnutrition aggravates death risk among children.
The UN organization said in a report that “the situation in Gaza shows that families are unable to meet the nutritional needs of their children, which may lead to severe consequences.”
On June 12, Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, expected that half of the Gaza Strip will face death and famine by mid-July.
