With the arrival of summer heat waves Gaza's squalid, overcrowded camps for internally displaced people face growing risk of epidemic, the territory's civil defense agency has warned.
"The suffering of displaced people in the displacement camps in the southern governorates of Gaza seems to be increasing with the intensification of heat waves,'' the agency said in a statement Thursday.
It added that this situation "forewarns of the widening spread of epidemics and diseases among them, especially among children and pregnant women."
The statement called on the World Health Organization (WHO) ''to urgently take actions to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and find alternative places to tents amid severe heat waves in the coming days."
Gaza is experiencing a severe heat wave, with temperatures reaching around 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) during daylight hours Thursday.
Since the beginning of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the invading army has forcibly displaced residents of the enclave southward, claiming it to be a "safe zone."
But Israeli shelling, destruction and atrocities have affected all areas, leading to the congestion of around 1.3 million of the Strip's 2.3 million people in Rafah city alone, according to government officials in Gaza.
The conflict was triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion last year which caused around 1,200 deaths in southern Israel.
Israel has since waged a brutal offensive on Gaza Strip, killing over 34,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Nearly 77,300 others have been injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.
More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the U.N.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.