Lamis al-Astal – Bahaa Shaa’th – Abla al-Alami – Hala Eid – Maysara Fusayfis
On one corner of a displaced tent, 48-year-old, Muna Shaa’th stands in front of blankets and stitched fabrics surrounding a public bathroom shared between displaced families, waiting for her 15-year-old daughter Hamsa, whose eyes hold fear older than her age, and confusion that cannot be put into words, as she struggles with the lack of both privacy and hygiene—conditions that create a fertile environment for disease and a stark symbol of humiliation and lost dignity, all under the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
Muna —a mother of three sons and one daughter— says, “Our displacement journey is filled with pain and suffering; we were displaced from Rafah — southern the Gaza Strip more than once, till we reached our final destination — a worn up tent — in Mawasi in Khan Younis.”
Shaa’ath adds: “The most difficult part of life in the tent is using the shared public bathroom. More than one family—over eighty people—use it, and there’s a severe lack of cleaning supplies. It’s heavily contaminated, especially since we can’t flush water after using the toilet out of fear that the waste will overflow on us due to the absence of proper sewage systems.”
“We’re plagued by flies swarming over the waste, in addition to the spread of rats and insects like cockroaches, mosquitoes, and others. This has led to a sharp increase in illnesses such as typhoid, urinary tract infections, diarrhea, skin rashes, smallpox, stomach pain, and more,” she continues.
Shaat goes on to say:
“As women and girls, we’ve noticed a change in our menstrual cycles—differences in blood color, an increase in discharge, and intense burning and inflammation during our periods. The prevailing lack of hygiene and flies gathering over our used sanitary pads during changes play a big role in this. Added to that is the constant discomfort we feel, which only makes the pain even worse.”
With the lack of sanitary supplies — we started resorting to unsafe alternatives, such as using dishwashing liquid or detergent with water when hand soap is scarce or expensive, and replacing sanitary pads with worn-out strips during menstruation,” noting that all of this poses a significant risk in the short and long term.
Hamsa — who wears her ear piece — says to us, “My mother always escorts me to the bathroom, waiting for me behind the cloths; fearing for me and watching out for my privacy, alerting anyone who wants to use the bathroom that it’s already in use; because I have a hearing and speech impairment that makes them unable to hear or even understand me. They bully me to a great extent.”
Shaat describes her psychological state, saying, “I feel extremely tired and weighed down when I go to the bathroom, due to the lack of cleanliness and privacy. I also feel extremely afraid when I go out at night to relieve myself, holding a dim light and a bottle of water with my mother.”
She continued, “We’ve started reducing the amount of food and drink we eat to reduce the number of times we go to the bathroom.” She noted that people are now drinking large quantities of water in the summer due to the intense heat, and holding back their bowel movements, which negatively impacts the kidneys and bladder.
Shaat addressed the relevant authorities, saying, “I hope that all international humanitarian organizations will look at us with compassion and provide each family with a fully sanitary bathroom, in addition to all necessary hygiene supplies, including hand soap, sanitary pads, dry and wet wipes, a bathroom brush, and more.” She called for the preservation of physical health and the preservation of human dignity in a time of war and displacement that has spared no one.
For her part, public health specialist Dr. Suha Shaat warns of the scale of the humanitarian health disaster facing displacement camps. These camps are overcrowded with displaced people, combined with shared public bathrooms, poor ventilation, a scarcity of clean water, and limited healthcare services. These conditions create an environment conducive to the rapid spread of infectious diseases, increasing the risk of infection, particularly among vulnerable groups such as children, women, and the elderly.
“The unsanitary conditions prevalent in IDP camps, especially in the shared public bathrooms, lead to an increase in skin diseases such as scabies, smallpox, and skin fungi such as lice, as well as intestinal and digestive diseases such as acute diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, meningitis, and jaundice, viral infections such as hepatitis A and E, reproductive infections, especially among women due to the difficulty of personal hygiene, fungal, bacterial, and vaginal infections, and parasitic diseases including pinworms and Ascaris,” Shaat said, noting that samples were recently taken from several septic tanks containing the polio virus, which prompted the Ministry of Health to launch the first, second, and third campaigns to combat it.
She notes that the latest official statistics from the Ministry of Health, up to the end of May 2025, confirm the spread of diseases related to shared bathrooms and sewage due to poor drainage and general poor hygiene.
“Shared public restrooms and their lack of cleanliness negatively impact people’s psychological well-being, especially women and girls,” Shaat continued. “They lead to a constant feeling of insecurity, constant anxiety, depression, and fear of harassment and violence due to the lack of privacy. They also avoid using the restroom, which leads to frequent urinary retention and urinary tract infections, as well as feelings of extreme embarrassment during menstruation, which impacts personal hygiene by delaying the use of sanitary pads and a lack of self-confidence, leading to feelings of humiliation and loss of dignity.”
The World Health Organization calls for the provision of minimum humanitarian health interventions, such as the distribution of personal hygiene materials, clean water for drinking and bathing, sanitary pads and underwear for women and girls, efforts to establish separate, safe, and enclosed bathrooms for women and men, the establishment of mobile clinics or primary health centers, and awareness campaigns on public and private hygiene.
Shaat emphasized the urgent need to establish handwashing stations as mobile health facilities, support temporary infrastructure in camps by providing water and sanitation tanks, train local workers in health crisis management, secure medicine supplies, and conduct vaccination campaigns for children against infectious diseases.
She points out that signs of a potential outbreak of the crisis have begun to appear, with the emergence of a type of skin infection that is difficult to treat for the first time, along with the spread of certain strains of insects that are resistant to known pesticides. She emphasizes that the risk increases with every delay in intervention.
“Among the most significant long-term concerns are post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is characterized by constant anxiety and fear of contracting illness and losing loved ones; weakened immunity in children due to constant exposure to infections and permanent disability resulting from untreated illnesses; delayed mental and physical development due to dehydration caused by frequent diarrhea, severe anemia, poor concentration and general performance; and girls dropping out of school due to poor hygiene conditions,” Shaat concluded.
