DaysofPal- More than two years into the war, sewage water continues to flood streets across Gaza’s Beach (Al-Shati) refugee camp, turning daily life into a relentless struggle for hundreds of thousands of displaced families and residents.
With infrastructure in ruins, crossings closed, and repair equipment barred from entering, Gaza now faces an escalating public-health and environmental disaster with no solution in sight.
In a street west of Al-Quds Open University, resident Saed Radwan says he can no longer sleep because of the suffocating stench rising from sewage water that constantly fills the street. “The smell is unbearable,” he told Felesteen Online.
“The municipality comes, tries to fix it, and two days later everything collapses again. Children can’t leave the house. The street has become a stagnant swamp.” He added.
Further north, near the road leading to the Qouqa roundabout, Shiref Abu Shwareb describes his area as “the worst in the camp.”
He says rubble from airstrikes has mixed with garbage and sewage, creating a dangerously contaminated path.
“When it rains, you can’t take a single step,the whole street turns into a swamp, no cars, no people, nothing.” he said.
In the market street at the center of Beach Camp, repeated repairs have also failed.
“The underground infrastructure is completely destroyed,” resident Mohammed Salem said. “They fix it one day, it collapses the next. Sewage and garbage now attract mosquitoes and diseases. The situation is unbearable.” He added.
The overlapping crises of wastewater, drinking-water scarcity, and uncontrolled waste accumulation, combined with widespread destruction of infrastructure, paint a bleak picture for the future of Beach Camp and the Gaza Strip as a whole.
With rising garbage piles, overflowing sewage, and shrinking access to safe drinking water, more than two million people are being pushed to the brink of a health disaster.
Local authorities say their capacity to respond has been crippled. Gaza Municipality spokesperson Husni Mehanna confirmed that the city’s sewage system is now “devastated and almost entirely non-functional.”
He said more than 185,000 meters of sewage pipelines, about one-third of the main network, have been destroyed, and nearly 5,000 manholes are clogged with rubble and sand.
Eight major sewage pumping stations are damaged, including three destroyed completely. The main treatment plant in Sheikh Ajleen has also suffered severe destruction.
Municipal teams are operating at less than half capacity, Mehanna added, warning that continued border closures and rising temperatures could spark large outbreaks of disease.
He said 133 of the 180 vehicles used for sanitation and sewage work were destroyed during the war, leaving the municipality unable to meet even basic service needs.
Despite the destruction, he insisted the sewage crisis could be brought under control within three to four months if equipment and repair materials were allowed to enter Gaza.
The Palestinian Water Authority echoed the dire warnings, describing the situation as an “imminent humanitarian catastrophe.”
It said Gaza is “dying of thirst” after 85% of water and sewage facilities were destroyed and water extraction dropped by 80%. Average daily water consumption has fallen to just 3–5 liters per person, far below the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization.
Sewage mixing with rainwater pools, the authority warned, could lead to severe epidemics, especially as residents increasingly rely on salty, contaminated water.
International agencies have also sounded alarms. Alessandro Maracich, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) office in Gaza, said the waste crisis is “massive,” noting that landfills were already full before the war and that three key dumpsites now lie inside restricted border areas.
Gaza is currently littered with nearly two million tons of unmanaged waste, he said, posing grave threats to groundwater, the environment, and human health.
The UN is exploring long-term solutions such as waste-to-energy plants, but Maracich stressed that no plan can proceed without immediate entry of machinery and equipment.
As sewage floods streets, garbage surrounds tents, and clean water dwindles, Gaza’s residents continue to cling to a thin thread of hope, hope that the crossings will open, that repair equipment will finally be allowed in, and that the city will one day reclaim its right to breathe.
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