Due to the lack of a unified waste collection and transportation system, more than 2,000 tons of garbage, sewage, and waste from vital activities accumulate daily on the streets of cities and towns in the Gaza Strip. This is stated in a press release by the international charity and humanitarian organization Oxfam.

It is noted that due to the destroyed urban infrastructure and sewage system, more than 2,000 tons of garbage—which is a toxic combination of open sewage, waste from vital activities and sewage—pile up daily on the streets of cities and towns in this Palestinian enclave.

“Hundreds of thousands of displaced people across the Gaza Strip have had to resort to digging makeshift cesspits next to their tents. This daily discharge of approximately 130,000 cubic meters—the equivalent of 52 Olympic pools—of untreated sewage is contaminating the Mediterranean Sea and Gaza’s only aquifer," said Clemence Lagouardat, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Coordinator in Gaza.

Also, Oxfam stressed that this growing amount of garbage and waste, combined with an acute shortage of clean water, has "triggered an explosion of waterborne and infectious diseases."