UN warns of impact of growing piles of rubbish in Gaza

Growing piles of rubbish in Gaza mean that families are fleeing to areas that do no have "acceptable living conditions," according to the UN.

"Everywhere you look there is a pile of trash," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) posted on its X account alongside pictures of rubbish in Deir al-Balah by the Mediterranean coast.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said overnight that around 1 million refugees from the city of Rafah were living in miserable sanitary conditions.

The war, which has been going on for almost eight months, has massively worsened the living conditions of the approximately 2.2 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.

According to aid organizations, around 1.7 million people have had to leave their homes.

Even prior to the war there were only two central waste disposal sites in Gaza to deal with around 1,700 tons of waste per day.

The UN has warned of serious health effects of the waste crisis on the people in the Gaza Strip. There is also a threat of contamination of agricultural soils and groundwater. Rising temperatures in the region could further exacerbate the situation.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre of more than 1,200 people by militants from the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group and other militants in Israel on October 7. According to the health authorities controlled by Hamas in Gaza, more than 36,100 Palestinians have so far been killed in the war.