Amid further evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military in Gaza, UN humanitarians issued a fresh warning on Monday over the dire sanitary emergency there and the urgent need for a mass polio vaccination campaign in the embattled enclave.
UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, issued a statement from Deir al-Balah in Gaza’s central area, where untreated sewage run-off formed large pools on the road next to shelters for forcibly displaced people.
“Sewage water is all over the streets,” said UNICEF spokesperson Salim Oweis, who highlighted the destruction of Gaza’s water and sanitation network, and its sewage treatment plants, since war erupted on 7 October, after Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel.
