Bodies lie unclaimed and rats run rampant as months on Gaza’s ceasefire remains unfulfilled
Fourteen-year-old Karam dribbles a blue, yellow and white football along a sandy road in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
“My dream was to be a football player,” said Karam, who was displaced along with his two brothers and sister. “I used to play on the street with my friends.
“Before the war, life was good. But now there is no life,” he told CNN.
Around the teenager, Gaza’s deep blue, seaside horizon dissolved into a panorama of burnt farmland, charred orchards and mountains of rubble.
As the US and Iran try to turn the ceasefire into long-term peace, CNN spoke to Strip residents who say they are living in the ashes of what they see as another ineffective US-led deal. Israel has banned foreign journalists from reporting independently in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
Karam (center), a Palestinian teenager, is housed in a tent camp in central Gaza. According to the UN, the cost of rebuilding Gaza after Israel’s operation will be $71.4 billion. – Muhammad Al-Khatib
Last fall, Israel and Hamas signed a two-phase agreement agreement Following the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, followed by two years of bombing and siege in Gaza.
Both sides accused each other of violating terms that call for the eventual withdrawal of Israeli troops, the complete disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international force and the establishment of a new Palestinian governing body.
More than eight months later, there is little sign of progress. Instead, Gazans “face a dangerous status quo,” says Nikolay Mladenov, the former UN official charged with implementing the deal. Warned in May. On Thursday, the Peace Board formed to advance the ceasefire plan in Gaza touted two days of “extremely productive” meetings in Cyprus, but the path forward remains unclear.
Authorities have not yet set a timetable for the establishment of a committee of Palestinian technocrats to take over management of the region from Hamas, and the international force proposing the security infrastructure has not yet been implemented.
Israel further strengthens its occupation in Gaza “yellow line” He continued to target Hamas members. Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: he ordered He suggested the army needed to take control of 70 percent of the territory and could take even more.
Meanwhile, Hamas regrouped, refused to lay down its weapons, and expanded its control over the region.
The death toll is increasing. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement on June 21 that at least 1,059 people were killed and 3,429 people were injured in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement was signed on October 11.
According to CNN’s health ministry figures, an average of one child has been killed every day in Gaza since October. An independent UN commission in June to create Israel rejected the accusation that Israel continues to commit genocide against Palestinians by deliberately targeting children in Gaza as a “political blood libel disguised as a UN document.”
Those living in Gaza say that diplomats’ talk of “peace” does not reflect the reality that the brutality of war continues.
“You can be bombed anytime, anywhere,” said Sally Saleh, a displaced aid worker in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. “There is no actual ceasefire here.”
Rodents bite sleeping children
More than 1.9 million people (almost the entire population of Gaza) were displaced. to the UN, many times. This number has remained stubbornly stable, exacerbating the inhumane consequences of long-term homelessness.
Months after the ceasefire, many people remain in unventilated, impromptu tents where rashes and other ectoparasitic infections have become commonplace, where parasites have taken up residence. skin – is becoming increasingly common, UN warned At the end of May. in it latest reportThe UN said such infections affected more than 80% of all displaced areas.
Rats, cockroaches and ferrets are running amok, tearing loose tent covers and biting children and newborn babies. their sleep. Saleh, emergency head of the UK-based NGO Medical Aid to Palestinians (MAP) in Gaza, said that in some cases they “directly attack people”. The elderly and the disabled are less able to avoid rodents, especially at night.
“We talked to parents whose children had been bitten by rats and were afraid it would happen again,” Saleh said.
A Palestinian child with dark spots on various parts of his body due to poor hygiene conditions in shelters. – Mahmoud Abu Hamda/Anadolu/Getty Images
According to Hosni Nadeem Mohanna, spokesman for the water municipality in Gaza City, residents have resorted to digging septic tanks as toilet stocks elsewhere have been severely reduced, leading to soil and water pollution.
Mice get into aid packages and force people to throw away scarce rice and flour supplies. Some Palestinians even try to hang food containers from the ceiling of their tents to keep them out of reach.
The Israeli government announced last month that it would launch a “large-scale pest control campaign” in many regions together with the UN.
More broadly, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency tasked with facilitating aid distribution in Gaza, said it had coordinated the entry of about 600 trucks a day since last October; this is the minimum number required under the agreement. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is stable and supported by a constant and consistent flow of aid,” COGAT posted on X in early June.
But human rights organizations say this is not enough, citing Israel’s restrictions on energy production and the entry of spare parts. killing aid workers were tasked with distributing aid.
Saleh added that these restrictions have forced some institutions to interrupt their activities, including water deliveries, “putting more pressure on the population.”
Israel’s expanding ‘yellow line’
A child stands at a garbage dump in Gaza City on June 8. An official told CNN that preventing municipal crews from reaching the main landfill in Juhor al-Dik, east of Gaza City, led to the accumulation of 370,000 cubic meters of waste. – Jehad Alsrafi/AP
Children displaced by Israel’s campaign live in decrepit tents near accumulated sewage water in Gaza City, June 5. A UNICEF spokesman said more than 335,000 children under the age of five were at risk of “serious developmental delays”. – Hadi Daoud/APARimages/Shutterstock
Saleh warned that the Israeli army’s recent expansion of the “yellow line” was “leading to new waves of displacement.” “Overhead attacks, strikes and gunfire” have intensified in populated areas, he said.
Saleh warned that the Israeli army’s continued expansion of captured territory in Gaza and the so-called “yellow line” movement were leading to new displacements. Airstrikes, attacks and gunfire against densely populated areas “have intensified,” he said.
Even if families find a new plot of land, in Israel’s wake, landfills and sewage pools degrade the environment. campaign created desalination plants, wastewater treatment and sewage management systems are not operating or accessible. This, combined with piles of uncleaned debris, creates a home for mosquitoes and rodents, according to water municipality spokesperson Mohanna.
About 25 million tons of debris has accumulated in Gaza City alone, Mohanna said. He told CNN that severe restrictions on the access of waste compactors and debris removal machines hinder authorities’ ability to collect waste efficiently. Some aid workers use donkeys and bulldozers to clear solid waste, according to Louise Wateridge, communications officer at the UN’s children’s agency in the Middle East and North Africa.
CNN has reached out to COGAT for comment.
“I wash my shoes every day because of the sewage,” Saleh said. “Gaza is now a place where no creature can live.”
The strongest reminder of the bloodshed is the thousands of people trapped under the rubble. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Palestinian authorities had recovered 784 bodies since the ceasefire last October. However, the Palestinian health ministry told CNN on June 28 that at least 7,500 people were missing under the rubble.
Pat Griffiths, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, told CNN that the longer a deceased person remains buried under rubble, the less identifiable they become, adding that human remains “must be treated with dignity.”
“There is a greater risk of this circumstantial evidence being lost,” he added, referring to height, fingerprints, dental records, old injuries, scars and birthmarks that have become more valuable in the absence of DNA testing kits in Gaza.
‘People continue to write, talk and hope’
Without a definitive ceasefire signal in Gaza, a new generation of Palestinians say they are psychologically scarred by the horrors of today and paralyzed by the task of building the future.
Salih said one of the most striking signs of children struggling to process the deaths and losses in Gaza occurs while playing. “I’ve seen kids simulate funerals or burials,” he said.
Older students and professionals face an existential struggle to find work, according to Yahya Alhamarna, a 24-year-old writer displaced in Gaza. According to the UN International Labor Organization, as of May, the unemployment rate in Gaza gradually rose to 85.1%. Before October 2023, this figure was 45%. to PCBS.
“Palestinian men are often portrayed through a narrow security lens, rather than as individuals living in extreme conditions. This framing is dehumanizing,” Alhamarna added.
As physical signs of life in Gaza faded, Alhamarna turned to storytelling as “an act of preserving memory.” Refaat Alarer, Famous professor killed in Israeli attack in December 2023.
“It represented thought, culture and the power of words,” Alhamarna said. “People continue to write, speak and hope. This is a form of resistance in itself.”
CNN’s Eugenia Yosef contributed reporting.
CNN’s Eugenia Yosef, Tal Shalev and Dana Karni contributed reporting.
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