The Electronic Intifada 12 November 2024
A girl picks her way through raw sewage water in a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip in August.
APA imagesIt’s not a pleasant job.
But it is a vital one.
In February of this year, Abdul Salam al-Aswad dug an absorption trench or pit near his tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and placed a homemade toilet with a wooden board raised on bricks to act as a seat over it.
With Israel’s war on Gaza lurching into its 14th month, Gaza’s 1.9 million displaced people – who have found shelter mostly in tents and temporary structures erected to shield them from the elements – have had to prepare for the long term as they come to terms with the fact that Israel’s sponsors have so far shown no interest in reigning in their genocidal ally.
One crucial need is the safe disposal of sewage and waste in a territory where Israel’s destruction of infrastructure has been near total.
Going to the toilet has become “psychologically concerning,” al-Aswad told The Electronic Intifada in late October.
“We relieve ourselves in a pit that smells and certainly causes us disease, but we have no choice but to use it.”
Every overcrowded shelter in Gaza increasingly relies on such absorption pits to mitigate what is a growing health hazard, and digging tools, pipes, barrels and materials to build toilets are being sold in markets and by street side vendors.
They are needed.
Spread of disease
Muhammad Mansour, 39, said many absorption pits in his shelter west of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip have started to collapse due to oversaturation of the ground with wastewater.
His 5-year-old son fell into a pit in August while walking with other children. The child was immediately taken to Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital for tests because of the imminent danger of infectious disease, his father said.
But it’s impossible to take precautions. Sewage water is present everywhere in Deir al-Balah, Mansour said, flowing freely in between tents in shelters and in streets everywhere.
“It’s very ugly, and we have to use these pits knowing they are harmful to us,” he said.
He himself developed scabies and skin rashes from the sanitation issues, he said.
“We know the causes of the diseases that afflict us. But we can’t avoid them,” he told The Electronic Intifada.
Ahmed Shaheen, an environmental engineer with the Palestinian Water Authority, warns of a possible major health disaster.
“Absorption pits can lead to the seepage of sewage into groundwater. Increased humidity and foul odors from these pits can promote the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever,” Shaheen said.
International organizations have long warned of the effect of Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza’s infrastructure and have reported a “rapid spread” of infectious diseases.
In October, the British Medical Journal, BMJ, noted that Gaza now has 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, compared to just 18 before war started.
The territory has seen the re-emergence of polio and is enduring, according to the World Health Organization, one million reported cases of acute respiratory tract infections, half a million cases of acute diarrhea and over 100 000 cases of jaundice.
“Without an immediate and permanent ceasefire and unrestricted access to humanitarian aid for all of Gaza – including a vaccination campaign focused on young children, and the protection and rebuilding of the health system – people will continue to die from preventable diseases and treatable injuries,” the BMJ authors concluded.
No privacy
Shaheen was even more downbeat. What is happening in Gaza will have ramifications, “on humans and the environment, that may be felt for decades because of the amount of explosives and destruction.”
He pointed out that Gaza’s infrastructure had been inadequate for years as a result of Israel’s 16-year blockade on Gaza before last October that prevented entry for the necessary materials to fix the territory’s aging infrastructure.
As far back as 2018, well water samples indicated that pollution levels had risen to the point that 97 percent of Gaza coastal aquifer was contaminated with sewage water, according to UNICEF.
And it is not just a health hazard.
Jamileh Omar, who was displaced from Gaza City to Deir al-Balah, said many women are uncomfortable relieving themselves in absorption pits, so they often go early in the morning when fewer people are out and about.
“There are very few bathrooms provided in tents by international organizations to use,” she said. “It’s very crowded, and there is frequent movement of displaced people, so people have dug pits.”
Shaheen said people in Gaza perceive the response of governmental and international non-governmental organizations as insufficient and that improving the health and environmental conditions of displaced individuals is not just a pressing need but “a fundamental right.”
Amjad Ayman Yaghi is a journalist based in Gaza.
