The aid group Doctors Without Borders said people in south Gaza are falling ill as they pack into crowded shelters or sleep in tents in open areas.
Nicholas Papachrysostomou, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, says “every other patient” at a clinic in Rafah has a respiratory infection after prolonged exposure to cold and rain.
““People are living in extremely poor hygiene conditions. In some shelters, 600 people share a single toilet. We are already seeing many cases of diarrhea. Often children are the worst affected,” he said.
The United Nations Security Council must demand an immediate and sustained ceasefire, to lift the siege and ensure unrestricted aid to the entire Gaza Strip, the aid group demanded.
With almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people crowded into the south, many worry Palestinians will be forced out of the territory altogether in a repeat of the 1948 mass expulsion known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”
More than 18,200 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombardment since October 7 as Israel’s deadly air raids in central and northern Gaza continue with ground fighting reported in southern part of the Strip.
