“The experiences of the desperate parents I met last week can illustrate this better than I can,” UNICEF Salim Owais, a communications expert, told reporters attending a bi-weekly humanitarian briefing at the United Nations in Geneva.
These include Hind, who has not slept since her 4-year-old daughter Maasa was bitten by a rat in the night.
They are taking shelter in a building “where sewage water seeps through the ceiling, and rodents crawl through the cracks of the building and climb up the open pipes.”
pain and defeat
Another mother, Amani, is caring for her 7-year-old daughter, Lamar, who has sores and wounds on her head, back and legs caused by a bacterial infection.
“Every day Amani tries to clean her wounds with the little, hard-to-get, clean water she has as her daughter screams in pain,” she said.
Meanwhile, Abdel Aleem and his family have laid out sandbags around the outside of their tent to protect against rats, which “just chew it up” because “it’s pointless to stop them.”
Both he and his eight-month-old son Ahmed, as well as his pregnant sister-in-law, had already been bitten in recent weeks.
parents feel helpless
“The common thread running through all of these conversations is the sheer sadness of parents who no longer feel able to do the most intuitive thing for themselves – protecting the health and safety of their children,” Mr Olweus said.
It is easy to understand the situation by looking at the conditions in Gaza, which is already one of the most densely populated places in the world, he said.
“Now, people are crammed into about 40 percent of the space they have left – sheltered amid broken buildings, debris and rising solid waste,” he said.
“Families across Gaza do not have enough clean water, forced to choose between drinking, washing and cooking with what little they have.”
Barriers and restrictions
UNICEF is working to bring clean water to 1.5 million people per month, but it still faces significant barriers.
last month, Two truck drivers contracted by UNICEF were killed While trying to collect water at Al Mansoora filling point. The water filling station – on which more than 1.25 lakh people depend – is now inaccessible.
At the same time, critical commodities needed to maintain water systems and repair damaged water infrastructure – such as oil, water treatment chemicals and spare parts – are not being allowed into Gaza on the required scale.
Moreover, debris as well as solid waste is accumulating day by day and both need to be cleaned.
Disease, diarrhea and infection
“Its effects are now widely evident: respiratory infections in children, acute watery diarrhea, etc. More than half of all households are reporting skin diseases” Mr. Olwis said.
“Fleas, lice and scabies are common. An increasing number of children are requiring hospitalization. There is not a single fully functioning hospital in all of Gaza”
Furthermore, even if humanitarians have managed to reverse famine conditions, “the number of malnourished and vulnerable children remains extremely severe.”
He warned that “without enough clean water and fuel to cook proper food, Even children who recover with treatment will soon fall back into the cycle of malnutrition – the effects of which can last a lifetime.“
A ‘completely unconscious’ state
Mr Olweus stressed that “no parent should be in a situation where they cannot provide the basic needs to keep their child healthy.”
They also should not see their children suffer from the pain of sores or weakness caused by preventable diarrhea.
“What is happening – to everyone – must be completely unconscionable,” he said. “Access to water, adequate nutritious food and health care Should not be conditional for any child, anywhere”
To break the cycle of suffering in Gaza, UNICEF is calling for unhindered access for humanitarian operations, lifting of restrictions on essential goods to repair and maintain water and sanitation systems, and upholding international humanitarian law.
