BEIJING, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- More than 60 days after a new round of conflict between the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate, with a large number of women not only starving, but also facing a shortage of hygiene supplies and an increased risk of infection.
This is a photograph of displaced Palestinians at a hospital in Deir al-Bailah in the Gaza Strip on December 3. Xinhua News Agency.
About 80 percent of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million people have been displaced, food, water and hygiene supplies are scarce, and many menstrual women have had to use baby diapers and even rags for "emergency", according to AFP.
Hala Attaya, 25, who previously lived in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, was forced to take her children to the southern city of Rafah to live at a United Nations school due to continued Israeli bombardment. During her menstrual period, she had to cut her children's clothes and even the clothes she picked up into strips of cloth to use as sanitary napkins.
I can only take a shower once every two weeks. At the school, where she lives, hundreds of people share a bathroom and toilet, and it's foul-smelling and filthy, Attaya said.
People receive relief food in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on 19 November. Xinhua News Agency (Photo by Rizek Abduljawad).
The situation is similar throughout the city of Rafah, littered with garbage and filth. Eighteen-year-old Samar Shaalhoub was evacuated from Gaza City. Talking about life here, she says: "We went back to the Stone Age, where there was no security, no food, no water and no hygiene products. I felt ashamed and humiliated. She used rags as sanitary napkins, causing "** damage and infection".
According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), many women in the Gaza Strip have been forced to resort to contraceptives to escape their periods, leading to a sharp increase in demand for these medicines. According to ActionAid International, there is a shortage of facilities and supplies in the Gaza Strip, and some shelters even share one bathroom for every 700 people and one toilet for every 150 people.
Action Against Hunger (ACF) shows that even if women have access to sanitary napkins in the Gaza Strip, they are "reluctant to change them and increase the risk of infection."
The health department of the Gaza Strip issued a statement on the 11th, saying that Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip has caused more than 1 of the Palestinian side80,000 people died and nearly 50,000 were injured, mostly women and children. According to Israel, about 1,200 Israelis were killed in the current round of clashes. (Wang Yijun).