In the short distance between tents, a displaced Gazan is separated from sewage by only a few meters. A pit dug in the sand, a water tank erected next to it, a narrow path traversed by children, and ground that has absorbed enormous quantities of wastewater over many months—this is how a new daily life has taken shape in the displacement camps, where danger no longer comes only from the sky or the rubble of homes, but also from beneath the earth.
What began as a makeshift solution to address the collapse of the sewage system has transformed into one of the most silent and dangerous crises in the Gaza Strip.
The cesspools scattered among the tents do not merely serve a service function; they have become open points for pollutants to seep into the soil and groundwater, a potential source of disease, and a direct threat to children and those working to dig them, all while the water tanks upon which the displaced depend for survival are located right next to them.
According to reports, there are approximately 320,000 haphazardly dug and unlined cesspools surrounding the tents of displaced people in the Gaza Strip.
Nidal Ghneim, Director of the Preventive Medicine Department at the Ministry of Health, confirms that the spread of these pits creates a double danger: the contact of sewage water with the population on one hand, and the arrival of pollutants in groundwater on the other.
The problem is not shortened to pollution and diseases; The hole itself could turn into a death trap. Rafiq Al-Amoudi, a 42-year-old worker and displaced person in Al-Samoud camp in Mawasi Khan Yunis, was one of the workers who participated in digging a pit for a residential tent. The hole was two and a half meters deep and one meter wide A mixture of sand and mud. Al-Amoudi relates that during work, a worker went down to the bottom of the hole to clean its sides and level the floor, without the actual reinforcement of the earthen walls. Hours after the excavation, one side suddenly collapsed, and the sand fell on the worker. His colleagues tried to take him out with their own hands, then the rescue teams were called, but the sand continued to collapse, and the worker ended up suffocating under it. Al-Amoudi says that the incident completely changed his view of this profession, after he realized that “any unsupported pit may, in moments, turn into a grave for those inside,” according to his testimony, which was reported by the report.
