campaign. Photo Credit: UN News
June 29, 2026
June 29, 2026
Arab News
By Jumana Khamis
By Jumana Khamis
Key Takeaways
Sanitation collapse is driving a severe public health crisis in Gaza, with widespread sewage flooding, contaminated water, and sharp rises in skin infections and diarrhea.
Children are the most affected, facing high rates of disease, malnutrition, and repeated infections in overcrowded camps.
The situation is worsening due to extreme heat, repeated displacement, and critical shortages of fuel, water, and medical supplies.
Analysis
For Gaza’s displaced families, the dangers of war no longer end with bombs and bullets. As mountains of garbage rise, sewage spills into streets and camps, temperatures soar, and clean water becomes increasingly scarce, aid agencies warn that a new threat of disease is spreading across the territory.
The UN Relief and Works Agency recently reported more than 125,000 cases of skin infections linked to rats and parasites between January and May this year, warning that rising infestations and deteriorating sanitation conditions are increasing public health risks across the enclave.
The sanitation crisis has emerged as one of the most pressing challenges facing Gaza’s 2.1 million residents after Israeli military operations devastated infrastructure and repeatedly displaced much of the population into crowded shelters and tent encampments.
The World Health Organization says that nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, while about 80 percent of the population now relies on trucked drinking water.
According to the Final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment by the World Bank, the EU and the UN, Gaza will require an estimated $71.4 billion in recovery and reconstruction funding over the next decade, including $26.3 billion within the first 18 months.
And with temperatures reaching 34 to 35 degrees Celsius in the last two weeks of June, families were forced to cool off in polluted seawater to escape sweltering plastic tents.
Prue Coakley, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ Gaza emergency coordinator located in Amman, said that the destruction of basic infrastructure had turned daily life into a health hazard for Gaza’s displaced population.
“All the water networks, sewage systems, electricity, everything is damaged … so effectively, you don’t have a proper sewage system anymore,” she told Arab News.
“When it rains, all of that content that should normally be underground and out of sight is on the streets, and it’s flooding through people’s tents.”
Coakley said that MSF teams had observed a range of sanitation-related illnesses, as well as a rise in respiratory infections during the winter months, with the health impacts “directly correlated to the damage to the infrastructure.”
Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the WHO, said that the collapse of water, sanitation and hygiene services had created ideal conditions for disease transmission.
“The most immediate public health risks are communicable diseases associated with unsafe water, poor sanitation, inadequate waste management and overcrowded living conditions,” Lindmeier told Arab News.
“These include acute watery diarrhea, hepatitis A, skin infections, scabies and other parasitic infestations, as well as respiratory infections that spread rapidly in crowded settings.”
The illnesses described by aid workers are already reflected in the data. From Jan. 1 to May 7 this year alone, more than 153,100 cases of acute watery diarrhea had been reported in Gaza, according to the WHO.
More than 493,000 cases were recorded in 2025, with about 47 percent affecting children under the age of five.
Children remain among the most vulnerable to the worsening sanitation crisis. The WHO said that child morbidity levels remain high and continue to compound the risk of acute malnutrition.
In December 2025, some 80 percent of caregivers reported that their children had been ill in the previous two weeks, while acute respiratory infections affected 42 percent of children surveyed.
Repeated displacement has compounded the crisis.
Coakley said that the reality was reflected even among MSF’s own Palestinian staff, many of whom had been displaced multiple times, some “as many as 15 or 16 times” during the war.
Movement across Gaza remains constant, she said, with people continuing to move north and south, while others relocate westward away from frontline areas to newly established displacement camps.
“The more people move, the more personal belongings they lose,” she said, adding that each displacement also means a loss of livelihood and purchasing power.
“People’s ability to wash their clothes, take a shower, all of those things, are really severely impacted by the living conditions and the constant movement.”
Among the clearest examples, she said, has been the spread of scabies and lice among children in displacement camps.
“You can do all the health promotion in the world and you can go to the clinic and get the treatment, but you go back to that same living environment and you’ll be reinfected,” she said.
The risks are expected to intensify as temperatures rise.
In its latest Public Health Situation Analysis, the WHO warned that Gaza’s population remains exposed to extreme climate hazards, with disease risks expected to increase during the summer months amid severely limited water, sanitation and hygiene services.
From Jan. 1 to May 2, the WHO said that 2,627 water quality samples were collected across Gaza. Of those, 73.6 percent failed to meet agreed water quality standards, with some found to be contaminated with fecal coliform bacteria.
UNRWA has continued to provide emergency water, sanitation and waste management services wherever access permits, but has repeatedly warned that shortages of fuel, medicines and sanitation supplies are hampering efforts to curb disease risks and maintain basic services.
“Shortages of laboratory equipment and reagents are affecting the ability to diagnose diseases and detect potential outbreaks in a timely manner,” Lindmeier said.
He added that fuel shortages were affecting everything from health facilities, laboratories and ambulances to water production, wastewater treatment facilities and solid waste management services.
“Shortages of medicines, laboratory reagents and medical supplies further weaken disease surveillance, diagnosis and treatment capacity.”
With summer temperatures rising, Coakley warned that dwindling fuel supplies could force aid agencies to scale back operations just as demand for clean water rises.
“A lot of agencies are saying they will have to decrease their activities because of shortage of fuel,” she said. “In order to prevent, or help to prevent, these waterborne diseases and hygiene-related diseases, we need more water, not less, right now.”
As aid agencies race to contain outbreaks and treat the sick, they warn that medicine alone cannot solve a crisis rooted in collapsing infrastructure, chronic displacement and dwindling access to clean water.
For many families, the struggle is no longer just to survive the war, but to stay healthy in its aftermath.
About Arab News
Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).
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