2024-01-12 13:14:37
Image source: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images
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A retired nurse treats a Palestinian child inside a supermarket in the city of Rafah, which has been converted into a medical point to treat the displaced due to the lack of hospitals that were destroyed as a result of the Israeli bombing.
Article information
- Author, Zainab Dabaa
- Role, BBC News Arabic
-
4 hours ago
“My simplest wish has become to take a shower, clean myself, and change my clothes for once.” This is how Muawiyah, a pseudonym for a displaced person in the Palestinian city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, began his talk to the BBC.
Muawiyah has to stand in line for six or seven hours to fill a gallon of water from the hospital, which is 10 kilometers away from where he was displaced.
He says: “Using the bathroom inside the hospital and school is your turn, and it takes five to six hours for your turn to come.”
Muawiyah built a small bathroom out of burlap for his sons, explaining that he found the entrance to a building on one of the streets, so he gathered some fabric and closed a small place.
He adds: I protect my children and save time and effort to fetch water and walk a long distance with it to the hospital or school bathroom.
Muawiyah’s words did not differ much from Hedayat, which is a pseudonym for a woman who was displaced from Al-Maghazi camp to Rafah.
She told the BBC that there is an outbreak of diarrhoea, intestinal infections, skin diseases such as smallpox, lice and influenza.
She adds: “This war has destroyed us. We have gone through experiences that we have never seen before in our lives. Our lives have become hardship.”
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A photo sent to the BBC by one of the displaced people shows his son suffering from a skin disease due to the lack of water and lack of shoes
“People here relieve themselves in the streets.”
Taimur, a pseudonym for a displaced person in Deir al-Balah camp, told the BBC that “his temperature, two days ago, was 40 degrees Celsius,” but he improved after he received an injection.
The reason he and many other camp residents are suffering from colds is due to the drop in air temperature. He said, “When we perform ablution outside the tents, it is very cold.”
He added: “People here relieve themselves in the streets, and the smell is very bad. We are close to the sea and we often go there to wash.”
Image source: BBC
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A picture of a displaced girl suffering from skin infections on the scalp
Nearly 26,000 cases of scabies and 3,600 cases of lice were recorded
Dr. Musa Abed, Director General of Primary Health Care in the Gaza Strip, told the BBC that one of the most prominent infectious diseases spreading in the Strip among the displaced in the city of Rafah is diarrheal diseases.
He added that, since the beginning of the war, 14,000 cases of diarrhea and approximately 480,000 cases of respiratory diseases have been recorded.
He continued: “We also recorded approximately 26,000 cases of scabies. I am sure that there is a much larger number than this number who did not come to the shelter centers to receive health services.”
There are also 3,600,000 cases of ulceration.
Dr. Musa Abed attributed the spread of scabies to the lack of water, “the lack of personal hygiene, and severe overcrowding, after nearly one and a half million people were displaced from northern and central Gaza and Khan Yunis to Rafah.”
Scarcity of medicines
According to Dr. Musa Abed, the suffering of the displaced is exacerbated in light of the scarcity of health centers, as “there are only two Ministry of Health centers in the shelter centers, which is not enough for this large number of displaced people. In general, it can be said that the health service is not available to the Palestinian citizen.”
He added: “Many trucks come through the Rafah crossing, but the medicines we receive are only sufficient for 20 percent of our needs in these circumstances. Primary health care medicines are very scarce, especially medicines for scabies, lice, respiratory system, and diarrhea.”
There are also diseases that have not been diagnosed due to the lack of laboratory tests.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza contacted some UN institutions to provide medicines, and some of them were provided “within the minimum limits,” according to Dr. Musa Abed.
Dr. Adel says that he appealed to all relief institutions to support the health sector and bring vaccinations, medicines and medical devices in large quantities and urgently into Gaza.
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