The Gaza Strip faces unprecedented disease outbreaks this summer caused by piles of uncollected waste rotting in the heat, fuelling further misery for residents already suffering from food shortages, according to Action Against Hunger.

Fenia Diamanti, project coordinator of emergencies at the non-governmental organisation, told Reuters that managing rubbish is one of its main concerns since it can’t be removed from the territory and nor do inhabitants have access to dumps.

“This amount of solid waste all over the strip causes multiple hygiene and sanitation problems,” Diamanti told Reuters.

“We fear diseases that never appeared in the strip before are going to appear and that will affect the entire population, especially in the summer when temperatures are going to rise.”

Action Against Hunger also helps distribute drinking water to communal kitchens and individuals, as well as handing out nutritional supplements to children and vulnerable people in the territory, a narrow strip of land squeezed between Egypt and Israel.

Before the bombardment started, the malnutrition rate in Gaza was just 0.8 per cent, but the situation has changed radically, and although there are no resources to compile the data needed to determine if there’s a famine, there are people already dying of diseases linked to malnutrition, Diamanti said.

“We were forced to start making interventions to prevent and treat malnutrition, focusing mainly on children under five, and pregnant and breastfeeding women,” she said.