One British university professor wrote that if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues, about 500,000 people in Gaza could die from preventable diseases next year.
A professor at the University of Edinburgh wrote in a note about the consequences of the current humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip published in The Guardian that many non-combatants in the Gaza Strip may not only be killed by bullets but also lose their lives due to health and hygiene problems.
The English professor stated: Attacks by Israel on Gaza have been recorded as the bloodiest conflict in the past thirty years, with the killing of a large number of journalists and UN staff alongside non-combatants. 160 children are killed in Gaza every day, making this the bloodiest conflict in contemporary history for children, and this figure is much higher than the casualties of non-combatants in Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.
Referring to the population of about two million people in Gaza, he wrote: If no change is made, the world will face the death of nearly half a million people, or nearly a quarter of the population of Gaza, next year.
This is while Gaza ended 2023 with a devastating war that began on October 7th, and the number of its victims has been announced as 21,822 martyrs and 56,451 injured until Monday, December 31st. The Palestinian Ministry of Health also announced that at least 7,000 Palestinians are still under the rubble.
Earlier, the United Nations and the World Health Organization had announced that tens of thousands of people in Gaza are at risk of infectious and contagious diseases.
According to the head of the World Health Organization, respiratory infections and diarrhea are the most common diseases that have intensified in Palestinian refugee camps. According to the statistics presented, about 180,000 Palestinian refugees are suffering from respiratory infections. Nearly 136,000 children under the age of five currently have diarrhea in the Gaza Strip, and if left untreated, they lose large amounts of vital water and minerals at this age.
In addition, more than 55,000 cases of refugees in these shelters have been infected with the skin infection disease “scabies” and lice, and their number is increasing daily.