GENEVA, Switzerland — The UN warns that an Israeli plan to take control of 70 percent of Gaza will increase suffering among children already hit by the impacts of severe overcrowding.
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF warns that this would deepen the health crisis among children in the war-ravaged territory, suffering from acute lack of food, water, and hygiene.
Now “people have been crammed into around 40 percent of the space,” UNICEF spokesman Salim Oweis tells reporters in Geneva, speaking from Gaza.
People there were left “sheltering among broken buildings, rubble and mounting solid waste,” he says, adding “there is no accessible space left to clear” the waste.
“The effects of this are now widely apparent: children with respiratory infections, acute watery diarrhea, and more than half of all households reporting skin diseases.”
“Fleas, lice and scabies are commonplace,” Oweis says, also pointing to numerous cases of rats biting young children and even babies.
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Friday, May 29, 2026
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