Israel-Hamas Conflict: Who Are the Quiet Killers Targeting Gaza’s Civilians and Children?

Those who have survived the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza now have to constantly worry about an unseen, silent killer: illness. Due to a shortage of food, clean water, and shelter, people living close to one another in refugee camps or in so-called safe enclaves like Al-Mawasi run the risk of contracting diseases.

According to a Reuters article, Gaza’s whole health system is in disarray since there are basic supplies that physicians need. Aid workers and medical professionals in Gaza warned the news agency that diseases would inevitably tear apart the area.

Citing statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Reuters story said that instances of diarrhea in children under five increased by 66% to 59,895 cases, and increased by 55% for the general population over the same time.

The healthcare system in the coastal blockaded enclave was already having trouble before the October 7 strikes, and the Israeli reaction has caused a full collapse, so although WHO worries the numbers may be higher, it is difficult to find out.

The conditions are right for illness to flourish. The question now is, “How bad will it get?” James Elder, UN International Children’s Emergency Fund chief spokesman (UNICEF).

In an interview with the news agency, Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra said that his ward was full of kids who were very dehydrated, to the point where renal failure may occur in some situations. He is in charge of the pediatric unit of the southern Gazan town of Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital.

According to Al-Farra, in the last 14 days, there have been 15 to 30 instances of Hepatitis A in Khan Younis. According to news agency Reuters, Al-Farra said, “There will be an explosion in the number of cases of Hepatitis A after a month because the virus has an incubation period of three weeks to a month.”

According to the news agency, which cited the WHO, 21 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed, 11 are only partly operational, and four are barely operational.

After fleeing a health center in Khan Younis ten days earlier, Marie-Aure Perreaut, emergency medical coordinator for MSF’s operations in Gaza, stated, “The first is an epidemic of something like dysentery will spread across Gaza if we continue at this pace of cases, and the other certainty is that neither the ministry of health nor the humanitarian organizations will be able to support the response to those epidemics.”

In a study article published last month, academic experts at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine cautioned that the conflict’s long-term indirect health repercussions would become worse. They issued a warning about the rising burden of baby malnutrition brought on by interrupted feeding and caring as well as moms’ declining nutritional status.

Relief workers in Gaza report that the predictions made by the researchers are coming to pass. They worry that the illnesses will claim as many lives as the conflict has.

The terrorist organization that controls Gaza, Hamas, says that over 19,000 people—two-thirds of whom are women and children—have perished as a result of Israeli reprisal for an assault they spearheaded that resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 Israeli citizens on October 7.

1.3 million Gazans have already been domestically displaced by the conflict and are being housed in makeshift shelters along a narrow stretch of land near the Mediterranean Sea. “Many of the shelters are four or five times overflowing with individuals looking for protection. The majority of the shelters lack clean water, a toilet, or a shower, according to Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s head of communications.

According to Touma, UNRWA is only running nine of its 28 basic health clinics since 135 of its employees have died and 70% of them have left their homes as a result of the conflict. As a result, the organization lacks the necessary equipment to carry out its duties.

Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN special rapporteur on the right to health, said, “The practice of medicine is under attack.” Since the assaults, almost 300 Gazan government and health professionals have died.

There are no medications to treat the sick children in Gaza, according to the chief of the pediatric unit Al-Farra, and the water is unsafe for human consumption.

“Siege… is a way to cause society to collapse,” Salim Namour, a Syrian physician who cared for the ill and injured in eastern Ghouta outside of Damascus during a years-long blockade imposed by the Syrian government, told the news agency. It connotes starvation, a lack of medical supplies, a lack of power, a lack of refrigeration, an inability to store food or medications, and a lack of heat.